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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






DORNER, Is^k Awt 



ON THE 



Future State 



Translation op the Section of his System 
of Christian Doctrine 



COMPRISING 



THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAST THINGS 



WLitU art Qntxaduction and Hjocbes 



BY 

NEWMAN SMYTH 

Author of " Orthodox Theology op To-Day," " Old 
Faiths in New Light," etc. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1883 




\ 









COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



The Library 

of Conor * 



WASHINGTON' 



Trow's 

Printing and Bookbinding Company 

201-213 East i.'zth Street 

NEW YORK 






THE FUTURE STATE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The course of recent theological discussion 
Las called general attention to Dorner's es- 
chatology. To many these words designate 
some vague and portentous form of German 
speculation, which should be kept with all 
possible pains from corrupting the sources of 
New England theology. Men like the fervent 
Tholuck, the profound Mtiller, and the learned 
Dorner, may be good enough Christians for 
Germany, but not for New England ! Dor- 
ner's last great work, the ripe fruit of a ripe 
mind, may be profitable for the " state church " 
of Prussia, but it should hardly be tolerated 
in the free churches of America! Such sus- 
picions and fears of good men among us, how- 



2 INTR OD UCTION. 

ever, may be in part accounted for and par- 
doned in view of the fact that their knowledge 
of the master- work of this master-mind among 
theologians has been mainly derived from such 
fragmentary and imperfect statements, and 
even misrepresentations, of Dr. Dorner's theo- 
logy as have found their way into the religious 
papers, and upon the platform, in this country. 
It seems to me to be a timely work, there- 
fore, as it is a grateful task, to bring one por- 
tion, at least, of Dorner's " System of the Doc- 
trine of Christian Faith " — that portion now 
particularly under discussion — before many 
American readers, who otherwise would still 
be dependent only upon the crude and second- 
hand reports of his eschatology which I find in 
general circulation among us. His whole sys- 
tem of theology has been translated in Clark's 
Foreign Theological Library; but the four 
volumes of this translation may be beyond 
the inclination or the reach of many who 
might be glad to study for themselves his 
views upon the special subjects around which 
of late the tides of theological discussion have 
been rising. If the possession of this portion 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

of Dorner's theology shall lead any to make 
themselves acquainted, even at some cost, with 
his whole system of faith, I shall have accom- 
plished a double purpose, and I believe a 
double good, by this endeavor to put into 
their hands this concluding chapter of his 
great work. 

I should be doing Dr. Dorner, however, an 
injustice should I publish as a tract for the 
times his chapter upon eschatology, without 
seeking through an introduction to put it in its 
own proper perspective, and to indicate the 
general principles of Dorner's reasoning 
through which we should approach this portion 
of his system. This seems all the more neces- 
sary since American readers are perhaps too 
much inclined to go up to the master- works of 
German scholarship as some tourists enter a 
foreign gallery, note-book in hand, armed with 
certain stock questions, and then hurry away, 
imagining that they understand a great statue 
or painting. Dorner's reasonings are living 
outgrowths from his principles of faith, and 
his conclusions need to be apprehended and 
discussed not merely as so many logical quan- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

tities of thought, but they should be understood 
and estimated in the light of the principles in 
which they have grown to be what they are. 
No one can read with sympathetic thorough- 
ness many pages of Dorner without becoming 
aware of the force and subtlety of his reason- 
ing ; but he will also perceive that he is not 
led by mere logic, or gradually pressed into 
some predetermined conclusion by an adept in 
theological dialectics. Dorner knows nothing 
of the method by which conclusions are first 
deftly interwoven into definitions, and then 
logically deduced from those definitions. His 
pages are free from the intrigues of verbal 
logic, as well as from the assumptions of axio- 
matic science; his supreme object throughout 
seems to be to perceive the truth in all sys- 
tems, and to present, in the consistency of the 
highest ethical principles, what he finds to be 
the real contents of Christian faith. His 
writings illustrate a remark of Newman in 
his essay on Development, that logic is neces- 
sary for the statement and communication of 
truth, but that other qualities also are neces- 
sary for the discovery of truth. It is this calm, 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

truth-loving, and truth-seeing spirit of Dorner 
that renders his thinking not only at times 
wonderfully suggestive and stimulating, but 
also an invaluable help and guide for students 
who would think their way through the heart 
of the most difficult problems of theology. A 
humble, truth-loving spirit, combined with af- 
fluent and comprehensive theological learning, 
and a simple, reverent faith — the genuine child 
of Luther's reformation — together with rare 
gifts of philosophic insight and power to dis- 
cern the inner relations and real development 
of theological beliefs, have rendered Dorner, 
these many years, pre-eminent among the evan- 
gelical teachers of Germany. 

A recent critic of Dorner, in a theological 
review published in this country, asserts that 
Dorner's system has no centre. It is con- 
ceivable that his system might possibly make 
that impression upon one approaching it from 
the outside, with no sympathy for, and conse- 
quent power to understand, its inner spirit ; 
for it is indeed true that Dorner recognizes in 
Protestantism two cardinal principles, and 
would prove faithful to both in all his dog- 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

matic construction, viz., the formal and the 
material principles, Scripture and faith. His 
theology revolves, a well-rounded sphere, upon 
these two poles — Scripture and faith. But it 
has one centre — Christ. It has one supreme 
law — Christianity. God in Christ, absolute 
Christianity, the self-revelation of God in 
Christ, — these words mark what Dorner ever 
recognizes as the real contents both of Scrip- 
ture and faith, and consequently as the centre 
and summation of all theology. I know of no 
passage in modern theological literature so 
thoroughly satisfactory and so helpful as is 
the exposition which Dorner has given in his 
" History of Protestant Theology," of the rela- 
tive independence and the real unity of these 
two cardinal principles of the Reformation — 
the Scripture and faith. The same thorough 
conception of the sources of Christian theology 
pervades his " System of Christian Doctrine." 
Both faith and the Scripture, he insists, " have 
the same origin in the Holy Spirit, which pro- 
ceeds from Christ, — how can they disturb or 
be hostile to one another \ " 1 Faith and the 

1 His.,p. 243. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

Scripture are respectively the Christian sub- 
jective and objective principle of knowledge, 
while the real principle of Christianity is God 
in Christ and the Holy Ghost. 1 Dorner's con- 
ception of faith, like Luther's, is one of intense 
Christian realism. Its object is not the word 
of God, but the Christian revelation, or God 
in Christ. It is not exact, and may be mis- 
leading, to say that Dorner makes the historical 
Christ, still less Christ as attested by miracles, 
the object of faith, and to contrast this with 
some vague conception of faith as the recep- 
tion of a so-called "essential Christ." No one 
has more clearly recognized than Dorner the 
preparatory imperfection of a merely historic 
faith, or more clearly indicated the way from the 
Jesus of the Gospels to faith in the self -reve- 
lation of God — faith in absolute Christianity. 
What Dorner does say in his very first proposi- 
tion in his doctrine of faith, is this : " Faith 
through which Christian experience is gained, 
and which must precede scientific knowledge 
and demonstration, has indeed in all its forms 
an unmistakable resemblance, for it will be in 

1 Glaubenslehre, I. , s. 155 f, and note. 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

some way an appropriation of what Christian- 
ity objectively is." * Faith, that is, he regards 
as union with objective Christianity. Faith is 
the appropriation of the real contents of Chris- 
tianity. There may be both " an historical and 
an ideal-divine side to Christianity," and differ- 
ent subjective positions may be assumed to 
these different aspects of it ; but he will lay 
the chief weight "neither upon the historical 
nor the ideal side," but "both factors," he holds, 
"may be conceived and appropriated as stand- 
ing in inner unity, and interpenetration." 2 

In accordance with this fundamental con- 
ception of faith as a real appropriation of 
Christianity, he proceeds to its scientific inves- 
tigation and development, — his own language 
may best show how : " The Christian doctrine 
of faith has to proceed, indeed, not absolutely 
productively, but rather reproductively ; yet 
not on that account merely empirically and by 
reflection, but also constructively and pro- 
gressively. The Christian illuminated sjDirit, 
through faith and its experience united with 
the objective Christianity, upon which faith 

1 Glaubenslehre, I., s. 16. 2 Ibid., I., s. 64. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

knows that it is founded, and which is con- 
firmed by the sacred Scripture and the bibli- 
cal faith of the Church, has to bring its relig- 
ious knowledge to systematic settlement and 
unfolding." * His method or principle of pro- 
cedure is further indicated in the following 
passage : " For exegetical theology the imme- 
diate subject is the sacred Scripture; for his- 
torical theology, the history of the Church ; 
but for the dogmatic and propositional (the- 
tische), the subject is faith with its contents 
appropriated from the sacred Scripture, by 
which it has continually to show itself to be 
Christian. The supreme fact in this contents 
of faith is the Christian idea of God. From 
it, as the highest unity and truth, are all state- 
ments of faith, and all Christian truths, imme- 
diately or mediately to be derived." 2 Through- 
out Dorner's development of the Christian 
idea of God appears one of the most distinc- 
tive and pervasive elements of his thinking — its 
predominant ethical spirit. His system might 
almost be said to have its being in pure Chris- 
tian ethics. One might illustrate this charac- 

1 Glaubenslehre, I., s. 155. v Ibid., s. 157. 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

teristic by quotations taken almost at random 
from Lis discussion of the moral nature of 
God, the Trinity, or the divine attributes. 
Righteousness is essentially grounded in God's 
being as love. " All in God is for love." 
" Knowledge even is perfect in God first 
through love." God, that is, possesses his 
own omniscience for the sake of his absolute 
love, and his knowledge is perfect as the pure 
wisdom of love. " God has absolutely his un 
chan^eableness through and in his ethical na 
ture, from which he cannot and will not fall.' 
Dorner's discussion of the divine unchangeable 
ness, in the light of supreme Christian ethics 
is one of the most original and fruitful contri 
butions to modern theology. Conceiving of it 
thus, as ethical unchangeableness, he harmo- 
nizes it with the living relations into which God 
enters in history, and can even admit that con- 
sequently the atonement does not merely eif ect 
a change of the relations of the world toward 
God, but also that "the world, since Christ 
really belonged to it, has a different worth for 
God, which before Christ it did not have — the 
actuality of the reconciliation of the world 



INTR OD UCTION. 1 1 

through Christ has for God a worth, which 
before Christ for God himself did not really 
exist." 1 This vital ethical element in Dorner's 
thought is the strength and health in which 
Christian theology now needs above all to be 
revived. In reading Dorner we realize that 
Christian thought, as well as life, has primar- 
ily to do, not with abstractions of attributes, 
or extra-divine necessities of government, but 
with the living God — with principles of order 
and with laws of administration only as these 
are the manifestations and outgoings of Him 
who is the supreme moral good — whose gov- 
ernment is his ethical, personal conduct of his 
universe. 

Since in Christianity there is realized a su- 
preme ethical idea of God, which faith may 
apprehend, for which indeed faith is the spiri- 
tual eye, it follows — so Dorner would assume 
— that we must determine what is Scripture, 
and interpret God's Word, and also construct 
Christian theology, in harmony with, and under 
the supreme influence of, this real, absolute 

Christianity, or God manifest in Christ. Chris- 

» 

1 Glaubenslehre, I. , s. 445. 



1 2 INTR OD UCTION. 

tianity can be read scientifically only in its own 
pure light. Any one who has once grasped this 
controlling principle of Dorner's theology, any 
one whose own theological thought has been 
uplifted into this pure ethical element in which 
Dorner's reasonings live and have their being, 
will need no explanation of Dorner's dogmatic 
hesitancy when he finds himself unable to re- 
concile facts of history, or texts of Scripture, 
with that which faith has already learned to 
deem Christlike and most worthy of God. 
Dorner would teach as a Christian dogma that 
only which can be made an integral part of 
faith ; for it is the object of theology to develop 
and show in their harmony the real contents of 
faith. It is not enough for a Christian doc- 
trine that it be apparently contained in the 
Scripture ; it needs also to be recognized as 
Christian by faith, as sooner or later all the 
contents of revelation will become also part of 
the life of faith, for both are of God. Faith 
wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost is 
"the eye for that which is Christian in the 
Scripture." Both are works of the Spirit, 
having the same essential contents ; and the 



INTRODUCTION. 13 

object of Christian theology is to bring out 
into the Christian recognition of Christian ex- 
perience that which is given for faith in the 
Scripture. Only in part may this idea of 
Christian theology be realized under our pres- 
ent limitations of ignorance and sin ; yet only 
as theology succeeds approximately, at least, 
in this, is it worthy the name of Christian 
theology — is it a Christian solution of the 
problems of life and destiny. Where theology 
must fall evidently short of this, dogmatism is 
certainly not yet a work of faith, and it may 
be a hazardous interpretation of Scripture. 

Dorner's discussion of eschatology is in gen- 
eral consistency with the principles already 
described ; it is closely connected with the 
view of the absolute nature of Christianity, 
and the universal importance of Christ, which 
in his discussion of the doctrine of sin and the 
atonement he has maintained with great force. 
In his endeavor to reconcile the fact of origi- 
nal sin with the claims of pure justice we 
meet with the thought that every man's final 
worth and fate will be determined not on the 
plane of the law upon which the individual 



14 INTRODUCTION. 

with the inheritance of human sinfulness is 
compelled to start, but upon the higher plane 
of grace to which Christ's work has lifted up 
the race, and upon which any human being, 
notwithstanding his inheritance of man's sin- 
fulness, may come to a free personal decision 
for good or evil ; and consequently no man will 
be finally judged until he shall have definitely 
rejected the manifestation of God's love in the 
offer of Christ, or, in other words, shall have 
committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, 
whom Christ has sent — the sin against the 
Spirit of the Christian revelation. This is 
only saying, in other words, that the last judg- 
ment shall be for all a Christian judgment. 

In this profound and comprehensive discus- 
sion of the doctrine of sin Dorner does not ques- 
tion or overlook its ill desert, as he recognizes 
also an ethical necessity in God for the punish- 
ment of sin apart from grace. The view which 
Dorner maintains of the nature of the divine 
righteousness, particularly in its juridical as- 
pects, 1 as well as his frequent discriminating 
assertions of the guilt and punishment due sin 

1 Glaubenslehre, I., s. 24. 



INTR OD UCTION. 1 5 

under the law, should have been sufficient to 
prevent any critic, who has read these por- 
tions of his work, from charging him with con- 
fusing law and grace. On the contrary, he 
has carefully distinguished between these dif- 
ferent stages of man's history, and the different 
degrees of sin corresponding to each of them. 
If the question be asked, whether character 
may not become permanent under the opera- 
tion of natural laws of habit, and upon the 
plane of the law, a student of Dorner would 
answer: Free, moral personality (for which 
God created man) can be fully developed out 
of the generic state, or race-connection, and 
can be finally self-determined in good or evil 
only through the actual choice or rejection of 
the supreme ethical good. Until free self- 
determination is reached in view of the final 
good ; until in the approach of that supreme 
good the definitive crisis comes to the individ- 
ual, human character may indeed be sinful and 
worthy of punishment, but it cannot have 
reached its final form and permanence. Its 
guilt, before that last sin of unbelief, is not ir- 
redeemable, nor is its punishment final doom. 



1 6 INTRODUCTION. 

Everything up to that absolute personal deter- 
mination, is still provisional and preparatory ; 
the generic and the individual sin and guilt 
are not yet thoroughly separated, and the in- 
dividual person, is, therefore, not yet fully 
ripe for judgment. So, also, the atonement of 
Christ may avail vicariously for the individual 
in whom the sin of the world, which is his by 
nature, has not yet become his personal sin 
against the Holy Ghost through his rejection 
of the good in its absolute revelation. 1 On 
the other hand, any one who borrows from 
Julius Muller his principle of the develop- 
ment of the depraved will under natural law, 
and the tendency of sin toward final permanence 
of habit, should, also, in all ethical thorough- 
ness, adopt Muller's general premise, and hold 
to a prior, free, self-determination in some pre- 
existent state. Either that, or Dorner's view 
of final, free, personal decision, under the reve- 
lation of the supreme good, is the only logical, 
thoroughly ethical, alternative. They may 
follow " scientific methods " in theology, but 
they build on a slippery slope, half-way be- 

1 Glaubenslehre, II. , s. 627 ff. 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

tween freedom and fate, who fail to ground 
their systems of "clear ideas" upon one or 
the other of these postulates of the two great- 
est of modern theologians. It is hazardous 
to borrow spasmodically, here a little and 
there a little, from German thinkers. Their 
theologies are apt to be ethical, as well as 
logical, wholes. 

This entire discussion of the nature, devel- 
opment, and definitive judgment, of a moral 
personality, should proceed under what Dor- 
ner would call the regulative Christian idea 
of God. It is true that man's sin is wor- 
thy of punishment; and nature may offer room 
enough for man to ruin himself forever, but it 
may not be large enough for God to work out 
upon its plane, and for all men, his whole work 
of love. The ultimate question is not, what 
may a man under the law justly claim as a legal 
right, but what God, as he has revealed himself 
in Christ, may be satisfied in doing for all men. 
Dorner would hold that God can be self-satis- 
fied in no instance with anything less than a 
judgment upon the plane of grace — a Christian 
judgment. What we should seek to learn and 



1 8 INTR OD UCTION. 

to think is always, what is most worthy of 
God — which is identical with the question what 
is most Christian. We cannot know God, as 
we may, in his relations to any of his creatures, 
if we are content to study his thoughts and 
ways simply upon some preparatory or pro- 
visional stage of his conduct of human history; 
but we must read all God's thoughts, and to- 
ward all men, in the light of the last perfect 
revelation of God, that is, in view of absolute 
Christianity. This is coincident, therefore, 
with the question what does absolute Christian 
ethics — the ethics of the regenerated Christian 
consciousness — the ethics of faith, measuring 
itself by the objective Scriptures, — lead us to 
think or to believe upon these dark problems 
of sin and destiny ? After recognizing the fact 
of sinfulness as our inheritance, Dorner re- 
marks : " But here new problems open, and it 
is for us so to state the doctrine of the gen- 
eral inborn evil tendency, or the general need 
of redemption, that neither personal moral 
freedom, and the truth of the conception of 
guilt, nor the ethical idea of God shall suffer 
harm." 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

In working out this problem he reaches one 
conclusion which will not seem foreign to 
New England thought : " The definitive worth 
and the final destiny of the individual are 
bound to his personal decision." 1 But what is 
necessary to this decision, that is, necessary 
not merely for man to come to a self-determi- 
nation, but for God as declared in Christ to be 
willing to leave him alone in his determina- 
tion ? What on pure ethical grounds is ne- 
cessary for the final worth and judgment of 
man ? In view of the Gospel Dorner does not 
hesitate to answer as follows : " From the ob- 
jective side this, — that the good should be 
placed before the eyes in its full clearness and 
truth, not simply as the voice of conscience or 
as an ordinance, but in its brightest and most 
attractive form, as the personal love, in order 
that the decision for or against it may receive 
decisive importance. Subjectively, besides the 
knowledge of this good, there must be full 
freedom of decision from out one's own proper 
personality." 2 Further, he affirms that " this 
subjective and objective possibility of free 

1 Glaubenslehre, II., s., 159. 2 Ibid., 174. 



20 INTRODUCTION. 

decision is now given from God through 
Christianity as the absolute religion." If any 
sin before Christ, he maintains, could be de- 
cisive unbelief, then the word would no more 
be true that Christ has power to overcome all 
sin before him ; " the sin previous to Christ 
would in some be beforehand stronger than 
grace." " So, then, from the true standpoint, 
that is, from Christianity, is it to be said : So 
long as the Gospel, which must come to all be- 
fore the judgment, 1 has not come inwardly near 
man, consequently has not yet been rejected, he 
may deserve punishment, and remain without 
Christ in increasing unhappiness ; but neither 
has there been given to him the definitive con- 
demnation, nor its opposite, but he is still as it 
were in a provisional condition. — In comparison 
with the sin which has known Christ and re- 
jected him, is all previous sin preparatory; how- 
ever condemnable in itself and punishable, yet 
it is only a stage (moment) in the process which 
has for its goal to make ripe for the judgment. 
. . . From this position of Christ, as he 
who brings the crisis (decisive test), and only 

1 Matt. xxiv. 14. 



INTRODUCTION. 21 

against whom the highest guilt can be incurred, 
it does not, however, follow that sin before 
Christ was not in the proper sense sin ; was 
not laden with guilt and punishable, although 
in different degrees and measure, and therefore 
was not in need of atonement. But from this, 
ripeness for eternal salvation or perdition 
cannot proceed. The definitive worth, or un- 
worthiness, of the person cannot come forth, so 
long as it still stands in an undecided process, 
and the crisis lies before it." 1 I will quote but 
one more sentence from this part of Dorner's 
work : "As little as the sinful creature can have 
a right to God's grace and to liberation from 
punishment, so, on the other hand, the adminis- 
tration of grace and of punishment is not ar- 
bitrary ; rather it is bound to ethical laws, and 
since undoubtedly the sin is more grievous, 
more worthy of condemnation, which rejects 
with contempt and scorn even the highest 
manifestation of love, the forgiving, yes, even 
the atoning love, so is it also in accordance 
with righteousness that the judgment should 

1 Glaubenslehre, I., s. 177. 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

be determined by the position taken toward 
Christ." * 

Having given thus a general statement of 
the ethical method and some tendencies of 
Dr. Dorner's system, I may properly be ex- 
pected to indicate more definitely its relation 
to the received New England theology, as well 
as the service which it may render to our own 
evangelical theologians in the further develop- 
ment of their own principles. It would be a 
doubtful gain to transfer any foreign theology 
bodily into our seminaries ; and growth is not 
to be made by cutting ourselves loose from 
our own roots in the sturdy character of New 
England, or despising the soil upon which we 
have been planted. We have our own indi- 
viduality to preserve, and our own work to 
round out to perfection, in theology as in life. 
But we need to assimilate to our own thought, 
and to transform in our own life, the most 
Christian thought, and the best life, of other 
countries, or we shall be hopelessly hardened 
in provincialism. Especially should we be 
willing to turn with a teachable spirit to a 

1 Matt, xii. 20; Glaubenslehre, I., s. 178. 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

Christian theology which has grown up and 
shown its power to survive in the midst of an 
atmosphere of scepticism and rationalism; 
which has kept at least the substance of the 
faith in a land where evangelical belief has 
been compelled by hostile and searching criti- 
cism to make thorough work with the evidences 
of revelation, and the contents of our natural 
as well as Christian beliefs. The same ques- 
tions are before us which have been for a 
longer time before faith in Germany ; and if we 
too are to feel our way through their darkness 
and doubt, it must be in the same spirit of lib- 
erty and honesty in which. German theology, un- 
der the conduct of men like Dorner or Weiss, 
is still following, and ever finding, its Lord. 

The New England theology was at first 
providentially compelled to begin to work out 
the great problems of the ages in comparative 
isolation and independence. It had not much 
to work with besides the homely methods and 
clumsy forms of the Scottish philosophy and 
divinity. But it is one of the historical evi- 
dences of the providential election of great 
souls for great epochs that God put at the 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

source of New England theology a man of 
spiritually creative power, who not only could 
take up into his own life the strength there 
was in his surroundings, but whose thought 
transcended his times, and scattered around 
him the seed-principles, at least, of richer and 
better things. Not all of the truths germi- 
nant in the works of Jonathan Edwards have 
fully come even yet to their proper develop- 
ment in the received New England theology. 
The later so-called Edwardian theology, in 
New England, has run too much into a logic 
and dialectics of the truths of redemption — 
following, as is apt to be the case among dis- 
ciples, the more formal and obvious character- 
istics of the master, and leaving comparatively 
disused the deeper ethical elements, and spir- 
itual intimations, which lie as latent powers 
of development scattered through the writings 
of Edwards. Especially is this true in regard 
to the doctrines of sin, and the atonement, 
where the later New England theology, in its 
logical straightforwardness and formal govern- 
mental completeness, lacks spiritual power and 
ethical thoroughness. 



INTRODUCTION. 2$ 

From the prevailing theological dialectics — 
one might in some instances almost say, from 
the orthodox rationalism of the later New 
England theology — a reaction was inevitable 
both from within and from without ; and that 
reaction is the main-spring of what is now 
popularly coming to be called the " new the- 
ology." The reaction from within had its 
source in the natural mysticism of the human 
soul — in the spiritual consciousness of a pres- 
ence, power, and love of God, beyond the grasp 
of the hands of our logic, deep, abiding, and 
true, as the instincts of the Christian soul, and 
the life of the spirit which is in man. To this 
spiritual need and experience the Scriptures 
are found to correspond ; — a theology may be 
fully equipped with proof- texts and maintain 
the letter of Scripture, but to be really biblical 
it must have a heart, also, for the profound 

mvsticism of Paul's faith and John's love. As 

./ 

the received governmental theology failed to 
satisfy what many felt to be the needs and 
teachings of their most religious experience, so 
also it seemed to come only into external con- 
tact with the profoundest passages and most 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

spiritual texts of the New Testament, and to 
be often more biblical in form than in sub- 
stance. 

The reaction came also from without, — 
through enlarging culture, and increasing ac- 
quaintance with Anglican theology, and more 
particularly with the development of modern 
German theology. It was stimulated and 
hastened also by a growing sense of the prac- 
tical needs of the Christian pulpit in its spirit- 
ual wrestling with the unbelief of the world. 

As is usual, indeed, with reversions from es- 
tablished forms, this reaction has at times 
gone beyond all bounds in transcendentalism, 
or has occasion ally troubled with a lawless and 
impatient spirit the peace of our churches. But 
the reaction is a fact of our present spiritual 
life, and the movement of our theology for- 
ward is a present and powerful fact, and it 
should be freely and gratefully recognized by 
Christian wisdom and guided toward the 
most Christian results. To seek to stop it by 
building up ecclesiastical dams against it, 
would only cause a general inundation of the 
surrounding regions. 



INTRODUCTION. 2J 

It should be observed that this movement 
has not had its origin in the desire to restate 
or to remove any special doctrine of our com- 
mon creeds ; still less did it start from escha- 
tological problems, or does it carry as its bur- 
den of thought any novel theory concerning 
the world to come. Its heart's desire rather 
is that all our Israel may be saved from ideas 
of God and his conduct of the universe which 
it cannot recognize as most thoroughly and 
ethically Christian, and which it fears are 
present hindrances and difficulties in the way 
of real, practical Christian faith, and the uni- 
versal mission of Christian love in the world. 
One of its initial impulses, at first more felt 
than understood, was an inward reaction from 
what seemed to be formal, merely logical, dis- 
tant conceptions of the one living God. The 
Christian God — the heart of the Gospel — be- 
came well nigh lost in verbal definitions of 
divine attributes, and abstract demands of 
abstract moral qualities, and external concep- 
tions of sin and atonement, wanting in truthful- 
ness to the deep personal sense of need, and to 
the new, gracious, most personal friendship 



28 INTRODUCTION. 

and union of the redeemed soul through faith 
with God in Christ. Many a student of the- 
ology began to feel, at first, as an indefinable 
sense of unreality and an unsatisfied longing for 
something going deeper down into his Chris- 
tian life, this lack in a theology which has 
started from Edwards on the Will, rather than 
from Edwards on the Nature of the Spiritual 
and Divine Light, and the Religious Affec- 
tions. Many for a season were driven back 
in this thirst and hunger of soul to the older 
Augustinian theology — to its deep moral real- 
ism — but they were nevertheless too genuine 
sons of Puritanism and New England to be 
able to tarry long in a system where full jus- 
tice did not seem to be done to the idea of 
personality and the momentous fact of indi- 
vidual responsibility. 

What was thus at first felt as a want and a 
longing has at length, in many minds, come to 
be clearly recognized in its principle ; and 
help, refreshment, and new vitality of faith 
have been found, particularly in the ethical 
vigor of the best German evangelical theol- 
ogy. The ethical realism of theologians like 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

Dorner appeals at once to their profoundest 
sympathies, and they come from German the- 
ology back to their own work, upon their own 
soil, for their own inheritance, with fresh hope 
and heart. They come back to the home of 
their faith — not meaning that any man shall 
drive them from it, or any attraction of appar- 
ent freedom elsewhere shall tempt them to 
stray from it — seeking to hold the truth in 
openness of mind and humble charity, but 
conscious that there is to be a new work, the 
necessity of which is already upon us, and in 
which they may have some part, for the spir- 
itual and ethical reconstruction of our New 
England theology. 

It remains for me to indicate more particu- 
larly the relation of this special portion of 
Dorner' s system, which I am now introducing, 
to our generally received New England theol- 
ogy. It is but justice to Dorner to state, that 
in the judgment of some most familiar with 
his work, this portion hardly equals in strength 
and positiveness of results some earlier por- 
tions of his system, as his discussion of sin or 
the atonement. But what writer, unless he be 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

a tremendous dogmatist, would regard his own 
treatment of eschatology as the most satisfac- 
tory part of his Christian thinking ? If in 
some respects Dorner's views may seem to any 
to waver where more firmness of outline is bib- 
lically possible ; if his summary of dogmatic 
results hardly seems to comprehend all that 
might be expected from a rigorous carrying out 
of his own principles ; nevertheless it should be 
borne in mind that the same strenuous con- 
ception of human freedom which leads him 
to hesitate where a New England theologian 
would affirm moral certainty, also prevents him 
from falling into the tendency of some of the 
most devout German theologians, and teaching 
the doctrine of a final universal restoration. 

One might hesitate to introduce Dorner's 
eschatology at the present time to the general 
public in this country, had it not already 
been imperfectly and crudely introduced to 
our religious world. As yet in many quarters 
the conditions for the full and free discussion 
of these themes seem to be wanting ; and, in- 
deed, before eschatology can be thoroughly 
reconsidered, especially in those phases of it 



INTR OD UCTION. 3 I 

which in the history of theology have not 
hitherto been sufficiently considered, much 
preliminary work may need to be done with 
reference to the great underlying questions, 
beneath all these special inquiries, as to the 
nature, limits, and true relation to faith, of 
the Scriptures. Before men can reason to- 
gether to any purpose concerning particular 
texts of the Bible, they have need to come to 
some understanding concerning the nature of 
a divine revelation and the relation of Scrip- 
ture to that revelation ; and also they will need 
to study carefully the scope, immediate ob- 
ject, and particular limits, of different passages 
of God's Word. Only in this way, and by 
the previous settlement of these biblical ques- 
tions, can eschatology be profitably and thor- 
oughly reconsidered. Certain moral conditions, 
also, are necessary to a wholesome theological 
discussion, productive of good fruits ; and in 
times of general alarm, and, in some quarters, 
even of theological panic, continued searching 
and quiet thought are often better than eager 
utterance ; — reverent, scholarly thought has al- 
ways in it the promise of the future of theol- 



32 INTRODUCTION. 

ogy. It is not my purpose now, therefore, in 
doing what I may to allow Dorner an oppor- 
tunity to be fairly heard for himself in this 
country, to defend his positions, or to appear 
in any way as the champion of a theology of 
which I would rather own myself to be a stu- 
dent. I am not prepared to say that I could 
endorse all his positions ; still less, that without 
modification his dogmatic conclusions should 
be offered as common bread for Christians in 
our churches. But I am prepared to present 
his method of reasoning as a good example of 
a mode of theological discussion, especially 
with regard to the doctrines of the future life, 
which we need to see more of in our theolog- 
ical seminaries and in our religious literature. 
I am ready to maintain that the principles 
upon which Dorner proceeds are clearly Chris- 
tian, and that the questions which he considers 
are proper questions upon evangelical ground. 
I go further, and maintain that they are ques- 
tions which sooner or later our New Eng- 
land theology must fairly consider and deter- 
mine in logical consistency with, and in moral 
loyalty to, its own distinctive principles and 



INTRODUCTION. 33 

historic mission. I add, then, a few words — 
not at present in defence or development of any 
views which I have been disposed to take 
into consideration upon this subject — but sim- 
ply in elucidation of the relation of Dorner's 
views of the Christian judgment to certain 
principles and results of our own theology. 

The older Calvinism was logically exempt 
from any consideration of the necessity of a 
Christian probation for every individual de- 
scendant of Adam, The race had already had 
its probation and failed ; and whatever oppor- 
tunity besides might come to any individuals, 
would come only as a decree of sovereign grace. 
Strict Calvinism has no need of seeking to ex- 
tend the idea of probation to elect infants, or 
to any heathen outside the limits of the decree 
of atoning grace. The idea of a future pro- 
bation for any children of Adam who are not 
graciously called here, would have been a mere 
superfluity of doctrine to Calvinism — as the 
idea of a present individual probation in this 
world is almost a superfluity to unmodified 
Calvinism now. In entire consistency with 
its central constructive principle, it has no 



34 INTR OD UCTION. 

place or use for these inquiries and ethical 
reasonings which Dorner is constantly bring- 
ing up. 

Bat the New England modifications of pure 
Calvinism cannot be thought through without 
bringing into question the central principle of 
Calvinism, and leading eventually to a thor- 
oughly Christian reconstruction of theology. 
After once opening the door to a host of new 
questions, the New England theology cannot, 
with either logical consistency or moral honor, 
suddenly shut the door against questions which 
follow naturally in the line of its own inquir- 
ies, but of which it has suddenly become sus- 
picious or afraid. 

When once the moral maxims were admitted 
into theology that obligation and ability are 
commensurate ; that no man is guilty before 
personal choice; that man is accordingly by 
nature still capable of probation ; that a moral 
person can be reprobated only upon the ground 
of personal determination in evil ; and that 
the atonement was made for the whole world, 
and all men are to be finally judged by God in 
view of the sufficiency of Christ's sufferings ; 



INTRODUCTION. 35 

then, this improved Calvinism was logically 
debarred, upon its own principles, from using, 
the short and easy answer to all questions 
about the non-elect and the heathen with which 
unmodified Calvinism could consistently put 
these difficulties aside. Let probation once 
be admitted to begin, not in the sin of the 
race, but for each individual in personal choice, 
and it cannot logically be conceived as closed 
in any other way. Let the atonement once be 
apprehended as a fact of central significance 
for the universe, grounded in the moral being 
of the Godhead, and then, whatever the theory 
held of its method, it must also be regarded 
as in some way central and vital in the des- 
tiny of every soul of man, Jew or Gentile, 
bond or free. The question as to the limits 
and end of probation is therefore necessarily 
given in the fundamental principles of the New 
England theology. It can withdraw from the 
determination of this question only by falling 
back, as some recent utterances of its leading 
representatives seem to show a tendency to do, 
into the shelter of the older Calvinism, from 
which, with much earnestness, it came forth. 



3^ INTRODUCTION. 

It should be at once admitted that upon any 
theory it is difficult in this direction to work 
out our theology. The common, practical re- 
ply of faith to all these questions is, that in 
some way God will be just to all ; or, as we 
should prefer to put it, in the spirit of Dor- 
ner's theology, In some way God will be 
Christian to all. If one simply says, without 
dogmatizing at all concerning the heathen, 
" The Bible was not given to teach what the 
Lord has in store for them — I know what is 
offered to me," — in that answer there might be 
much both of the reality and the humility of 
faith. But if any theological opinion is ven- 
tured, we may expect it to be consistent not 
only with whatever hints or suggestions the 
course of revelation may have let drop upon 
this subject, but also with the fundamental 
principles, sacredly cherished among us, of in- 
dividual responsibility, universal atonement, 
and Christian judgment ; we must be careful 
that we do not let the work of moral trial and 
regeneration fall back into any merely physi- 
cal process, and that our supposition, or specu- 
lation, be in entire harmony with our most eth- 



INTRODUCTION. 37 

ical Christian idea of God. Moreover, while 
speculative theology may require us to regard 
the possibility of repentance as involved al- 
ways in the possession of moral freedom, prac- 
tical theology will not forget that it is possible 
for a soul so to make evil its life, even upon 
a preparatory stage of revelation, as to render 
it morally certain that it would not repent 
though visited by an angel from a higher 
sphere. This possibility, I may say here, I 
have already had occasion carefully and defi- 
nitely to state in a note upon a sermon in 
which the unsatisfactory character of the 
prevalent treatment of the doctrine of the in- 
termediate life was mentioned, in the course 
of an endeavor to bring orthodox teaching 
with regard to the future life into more direct 
connection with existing unbelief. 1 

Dr. Dorner's treatment of these subjects, as 
presented in the following pages, suggests one 
way, not without some support from the Scrip- 
tures, in which German theology may possibly 

1 Character may become so determined at a lower stage of revela- 
tion as to render it morally certain that it would not change under 
a higher revelation. — 'The Orthodox Theology of To-day,' p. 
180. 



3 8 INTRODUCTION. 

be brought to the help of New England the- 
ology in the further development of some of 
its own principles. Important, however, as 
many may deem this subject, I am free to ac- 
knowledge, even in the act of giving Dorner's 
fresh discussion of it to the press, that it does 
not seem to me to belong to the essence of faith, 
and is chiefly of interest to my own mind as it 
bears upon the more general and primary 
questions of our theodicy — of our whole en- 
deavor, in the midst of modern unbelief, to 
make sure of the facts of a divine education 
and redemption of the world, and of a supreme 
revelation of God in the Word made flesh. 

I would unhesitatingly so far welcome the 
help which Dorner brings to my faith as to 
say, If a Christian theologian may put forth 
a suggestion, not in itself contrary to Scripture, 
by means of which a possible reconciliation 
may be conceived of the antinomy between the 
absoluteness of Christianity and the particu- 
larism of Christian history, and by means of 
which we may be able to set the prophecy of 
a general judgment in the midst of our Chris- 
tian idea of God, — then certainly faith may 



INTR OD UCTION. 39 

rejoice and say, " A fortiori there must be a 
full and final reconciliation of these difficulties, 
though we may have caught as yet only a 
glimpse of it ; " and we can drop the problem 
contentedly at the end of our farthest; sugges- 
tion, waiting in trust for the perfect revela- 
tion of God's thought for the whole world in 
Christ. 

We can be the more easily satisfied Avith pos- 
sible suggestions upon this subject, when we re- 
member what Schleiermacher pointed out, that 
eschatology is essentially prophetic ; and its in- 
terpretation, therefore, is subject, necessarily, 
to the peculiar indefiniteness and perplexities 
which inhere iu all unfulfilled prophecy. The 
prophetic character — fragmentary, metaphor- 
ical, undefined — having meanings beyond mean- 
ings, opening from immediate events or neces- 
sities out toward things unknown in the far 
future, and beyond present conception, — all 
this prophetic nature of the biblical eschatol- 
ogy renders intense minds peculiarly liable to 
misinterpret it; causes gross minds to strive 
for tangible beliefs which would grasp as with 
hands that which in the Scripture is left be- 



AO INTRODUCTION. 

yond man's reach ; and should, at the same 
time, lead sober minds to tolerance and humil- 
ity in their judgments concerning the half- 
revealed mysteries of the hereafter. Experi- 
ence would also seem to show that, especially 
in regard to these mysteries of faith, a large 
liberty of Christian thought is the only secu- 
rity both for the faith and the peace of the 
church. 

Dorner's striking remark about Christology 
— all the more noteworthy because in the field 
of Christology he has done his greatest work 
— may serve as a general principle of Chris- 
tian toleration : " Only those views should be 
rejected which prevent faith." Liberty for 
Christian thought — liberty for reverent and 
scholarly study and discussion — should be 
prized and most carefully guarded around 
those facts of revelation and redemption upon 
which the chief difficulties in our understand- 
ing of God's moral conduct of the universe 
most meet and centre. Thus, liberty of bib- 
lical criticism is now essential to faith because 
the providence of God has so ordered it that 
only through the most scholarly, conscientious 



INTRODUCTION. 41 

work in that direction can the fact of a divine 
revelation be brought again with commanding 
power to the recognition of a critical and 
sceptical age. Any ecclesiastical interference 
just now with the higher biblical criticism 
would not be conservatism — it would be haz- 
ardous to faith. So with regard to the na- 
ture of the atonement. Liberty of thought 
about Christ and the method of the atonement 
— within the limits of faith in Christ as our 
Redeemer — is vital almost in proportion as the 
fact of the atonement is essential to faith. If 
there must be dogmatism and intolerance, let 
it be over some minor question, as the mode 
of baptism, or the constitution of the church, 
where it may serve to cast moulds for con- 
genial groupings of Christians, and may do 
Christianity itself comparatively little harm. 
But liberty rises in value as the objects of 
liberty are more sacred. It is most important 
in the apprehension of primal essential facts. 
Thus the fact of gravitation is elemental, but 
any prescription of a particular mode of con- 
ceiving that primal law of the creation — any 
intolerance toward new suggestions for its 



42 INTRODUCTION. 

explanation — might involve a mistake in the 
centre of the scientific explanation of the uni- 
verse which should throw the whole develop- 
ment of science out of line. So some well- 
meaning mistake concerning the manner of 
revelation, or a slight error in our determina- 
tion of the law of God's self -revelation culmi- 
nating in Christ, if dogmatically insisted upon, 
and enforced as necessary to faith, might fasten 
upon the church a theology out of keeping 
with God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus, 
which in time would involve the church in dif- 
ficulties, straining faith and causing it to jar 
against, and to collide with, the constantly up- 
turning facts of history and science, if it did 
not eventually bring the entire movement of 
Christian life to a standstill, wholly out of 
centre and harmony with the order of the cre- 
ation. Whenever such want of harmony be- 
comes increasingly apparent, it is a sign that we 
may need to readjust our doctrinal conceptions 
to the essential facts of Christianity. For the 
real conservation of faith, then, in the divine 
facts of Christianity, liberty of faith to think 
is doubly dear and doubly essential. To 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

abridge or deny it, would be to imperil faith, 
and to cut dangerously near the nerve of all 
Christian energy and missionary zeal at home 
and abroad. 

Without feeling called upon, therefore, to 
adopt or to defend the dogmatic conclusions 
of Dorner in this portion of his theology — be- 
lieving, indeed, that at some points his reason- 
ings might be improved by attention to dis- 
tinctions which our own theology has secured 
— nevertheless, I would maintain that our 
somewhat scanty teaching with regard to the 
future life and the last judgment may be de- 
cidedly enriched by the contributions of the 
German theologians, and that the following 
pages from Dorner illustrate the profounder 
ethical method, and that larger liberty of dis- 
cussion, which we greatly need to cultivate in 
this country, especially upon these themes of 
immense practical concern, if our preaching of 
eternal retribution and the day of judgment 
is not to become in the ears of the people the 
echo of an empty faith. 

I may express a feeling of personal thank- 
fulness that I have been born and reared in a 



44 INTRODUCTION. 

religious denomination which has repeatedly 
shown, and that too with an emphasis increas- 
ing with every new occasion for it, that with 
us the Word of God is not bound, and that 
our chosen method is to preserve faith through 
liberty. 

I should say that the following translation 
is in part new, and in part a careful revision of 
the translation alreadv alluded to in Clark's 
Foreign Theological Library. I would also 
acknowledge my indebtedness for timely ser- 
vice in translating and preparing this volume 
for the press to Mr. A. D. Bissell, of the Yale 
Theological Seminary. I have omitted noth- 
ing from the text except the summaries of the 
literature at the beginning of the several 
sections, which would be of little value to 
American readers. I have added a few notes 
at points where Dorner's views have been mis- 
understood, or where I have thought they 
needed further elucidation, or application to 
questions now under discussion in this coun- 
try. 

New Haven, Conn., January 27, 1883. 



THIED DIVISION. 

the doctrine of the last things, or of the consum- 
mation of the church and the world. 

Sec. 151. 

There is to be a consummation of individuals, and 
the whole, particularly of the Church, which, how- 
ever shall not be realized through a purely imma- 
nent, continuous process, but only through crises and 
through the second coming of Christ. 

Observation, — Eschatology comprises, first, the 
future up to the decision, not only the future of in- 
dividuals (death and the intermediate state) but 
also the future of the kingdom of God upon earth, 
whereby the doctrine of Chiliasm and of the Anti- 
christ comes into consideration. Secondly, the 
doctrine of the second coming of Christ, of the 
resurrection of the dead, and the judgment. 

Conscience contains already in itself the fundamen- 
tals of an eschatology, 1 for the good is not yet believed 

i Rom. ii. 12 ff. 



46 THE FUTURE STATE. 

in as the abiding, only true reality, if it is not be- 
lieved in as the power to judge the world. 1 God can- 
not indeed will to compel the bad to become good ; 
but should He suffer the evil to prevail eternally, there 
would be in Him no zeal for the honor of the good, 
or do power to make it effectually manifest. It would 
consequently be not only against the outward honor 
of God before the world, but also against His inner 
honor, if He were not the judge of the world ; for 
He could not be indifferent toward the prevalence 
and dominion of the good in the world without indif- 
ference to the good in general. It belongs to the 
honor of the good, however, not only that it endures, 
and through a judgment shows itself superior to 
evil, but also that it reveals its inner wealth, its ful- 
ness of power. Therewith is determined negatively 
and positively a goal of the world. Heathenism has 
indeed very little eschatology. For it the questions 
concerning the whence and the whither recede be- 
fore the life in the present. It moves only in the 
circle of the life of nature, and knows no absolute 
divine goal of the world, nor such a goal for the indi- 
vidual, but has merely attempts toward a doctrine of 
immortality and the end of the world, as also toward 
a cosmogony. In heathenism, independently of the 
dualistic religions, the majority think, so far as their 

1 Therefore already, in Gen. xviii. 25, God is conceived- as judge 
of the world. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 47 

thoughts are directed at all toward the future, that 
the world will remain forever as it is ; although to 
its constitution is attributed a restless mutability, 
which, however, does not tend toward a goal lying 
in a straight line before it, but at best runs in a 
circle which makes no progress. Also in the case of 
individual persons, where the future is indeed little 
thought of, but where its continuance is allowed, — 
that future continuance is granted in a form which 
fits into the fundamental conception of the course of 
a circle, i.e., in the form of a wandering of souls, of 
a return measured by longer or shorter periods, but 
without recognizable progress as its result. When, 
with powerful awakening conscience, personal moral 
tasks come into consciousness, then only are there 
formed conceptions of the future separation of the 
good and evil, of punishments* and rewards, and also 
the future of the world as a whole will be brought 
under an ethical point of view. Most heathen re- 
ligions (also the lower dualistic) do not as yet reach 
the thought of a goal of the world, but remain held in 
alternation between periods of the victory of benefi- 
cent powers of light, and the dark, baneful powers, 
whether they remain standing in the cycle of the 
year, or advance to longer periods. The former is, 
for example, the case with the Egyptian and Syrian 
religions ; the latter with Plato, Stoicism, and Buddh- 
ism. Simple alternation, however, is the opposite of 



48 THE FUTURE STATE. 

progress, is anti-teleological. Only those dualistic 
religions, in which more definitely the opposition of 
the morally good and evil comes forth predominantly, 
concern themselves more with eschatology, and, in 
such a way that, after the changeful conflicts of the 
earthly world, a blessed goal of the world and an en- 
during victory of the good are held in prospect. So 
in the Persian, and, in part, in the Germanic re- 
ligion. 

2. But first in the sphere of revelation does such a 
teleology find a secure place, and here only a de- 
velopment of a doctrine of eschatology can arise, for 
here only is brought to consciousness the final goal 
for which the world was made, and which in the end 
must come forth in reality. The end, or the goal, 
determines at the same time the way to the goal. 
But two things are now to be taken into consideration. 
First, according to the Old Testament, eschatology 
is little more than the doctrine of future developments 
to be expected upon the earth, but beyond the earthly 
world-time the gaze was not usually extended. It 
was a future upon this side, not indeed a heavenly 
future, which the saints of the Old Testament had be- 
fore their eyes. Further, it was, for this very reason, 
less the future of individual persons than of the peo- 
ple and the theocracy. That consists with the his- 
torical earthly task of this people, with the mission 
which Israel was to have for the history of religion. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 49 

Tliis mission is given in the law built upon mono- 
theism, and represented especially by prophecy, which 
announced with penetrative insight the destiny of the 
people, the judgments over it, the great judgment-day 
of the Lord, but also the Messianic time of bloom to 
follow upon it, which should also be for the good of 
the other nations. So far as the individual is con- 
cerned, the terrors of Hades (Sheol) were not over- 
come by the faith even of the Old Testament saints. 
Beginnings of the belief in immortality are at hand, 1 
as indeed the knowledge is very old that death is not 
for man his normal state, but a contradiction to his 
idea. Enoch and Elias prove that communion with 
God is also a power over death, and so even the res- 
urrection is already used as a figure for the restora- 
tion of the people. But nevertheless the conception 
of Sheol remains throughout the Old Testament es- 
sentially the same. 2 The just and unjust are gathered 
together in it ; moreover, the former regard Hades 
as a loss in comparison with this earthly life. A doc- 
trine of the separation of the two, always in accord- 
ance with their deserved lot, is not yet to be found. 
In one word, over the final fate of individuals, the 

1 Ps. xvi. 10. xvii. 15. xlix. 15. Is. xxvi. 19. liii. 10. Eos. 
xiii. 14. Dan. xii. 2. [Ez. xxxvii. 3-6.] Comp. p. 101, note. 

2 Comp. Oeliler: O. T. Theol. i., 253-265; II., 304 ft. Sclmltz: 
O. T. Theol. ed. 1, L, 360 ff., 396 ff.; II., 136, 210-220, and Kahle, 
lit supra, p. 305 ff. 
4 



50 THE FUTURE STATE. 

pious and the godless, the Old Testament gives no 
more definite prospect. 1 

3. Christianity is first the absolutely teleological re- 
ligion, and points on to a definite decision in the future 
for individuals and for the whole. In the Old Testa- 
ment Christianity is itself the essential contents of 
eschatology. So one might think, after Christianity 
has become historical, prophecy then is at an end — 
all is now fulfilled. And that was the expectation of 
the disciples of the Lord, as it had been of the prophets, 
that the end, the consummation of the world, should 
come at once with the Messiah ; that the Messiah, 
first of all, would execute judgment,, and the revela- 
tion of his power would be the first event. But in 
opposition even to the Baptist, 2 Christ expressly des- 
m ignated the judgment as not his first, but his last 
work, and since he must appear, not at first in glory 
but in humiliation, suffering, and dying, so should 
thereby the end of the world be put off, and to the 
first presence (parousia) of Christ there was added 
the expectation of a second upon the ground of 
Christ's own most definite promises. That the com- 
ing of Christ should be divided into a first and sec- 
ond, was not necessary simply on account of the 
atonement, because the redemptive work required the 
self-sacrifice of Christ in suffering and death ; but it 

1 Oehler, ut supra, s. 264 f . 

2 Com. Matt. iii. 10-12, with Jn. iii. 17. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 5 1 

was also involved in the necessity of an ethical pro- 
cess in those who are to be redeemed. Not the glory 
and the beholding the power of Christ might be the 
first thing, for the beholding might have falsified the 
motives for devotion to Christ, and have done harm 
to the ethical character of faith. Likewise through 
this delay of the revelation of the glory of his person 
and his kingdom, which at all events seemed only 
short to the primitive Christian faith, the snre occur- 
rence of the decision which was expected of the Mes- 
siah was not rendered in the least doubtful. Rather 
just because the highest spiritual good is already 
come in the Gospel, the Christian, God-trusting faith 
knows also that now the power of the consummation 
is here, to bring all into decision for or against the 
good, and to cause the worth or worthlessness of every 
individual definitely to appear, so that now first 
through the Gospel all shall become ripe for the 
judgment. Thus there lies in Christian faith, as such, 
a pregnant eschatological element. Faith has already 
experienced so much from Christ's efficient work, 
that, in the presence of that which may be still lack- 
ing, however much it may be, it possesses not a hope 
merely, but the certainty, that the divine world-idea 
will not remain simply a beautiful, but powerless, im- 
age of phantasy ; and Christ, according to the abso- 
lute power dwelling in him over sin, the world, the 
devil, and death, shall not leave the work which he 



52 THE FUTURE STATE. 

has begun in ruins, and as a fragment, but shall bring 
it to completion. 

In faith the Church perceives already Him who is 
to come again, as he unceasingly, and not delaying, 
moves on to the end through his unbroken activity in 
the world. And, under this aspect, faith knows that 
with Christ's appearance already the beginning of the 
judgment and the end is come. 1 Believers are not 
confined to a thinking or a wishing with regard to the 
future. The Christians are a prophetic race ; 2 they 
know of the end and the consummation of the work 
of God which has been begun. And thus Christian 
wisdom forms her conceptions of the end or ideals, 
and through these the Christian hope — the immedi- 
ate fruit of faith — anticipating the end ; and from 
hope it draws the brave heart of love in order in true 
steadfastness (v7rofjiovrj) to will the right end in the 
right way. 

4. The distinguishing characteristic, however, of 
Christian eschatology is its relation to the person of 
Christ, which is expressed with special clearness in 
the doctrine of Christ's second coming. Christ's per- 
son, which is thought of in the New Testament as con- 
tinually working in a living way, but which in its time 
shall also appear again visibly, imparts to all portions 
of the doctrine of Christian eschatology their stamp 

1 Jn. iii. 19 ; xii. 47 ff . 

2 1 Peter i. 3, 4. Comp. ii. 9. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 53 

and color. Not only shall the final destiny of every 
one be determined according to his relation to 
Christ, and, for the blessed, communion with him 
form the central point of blessedness ; not only shall 
he be the judge of the world, because he is the son 
of man ; but he shall also awaken the dead, and be- 
lievers shall become in the resurrection like his glori- 
fied body ; also the nature of the intermediate state de- 
pends upon the relation to him, while the duration of 
it depends upon the occurrence of his second advent 
for judgment. And finally, moreover, with his name 
and his continuous working are bound together all con- 
flicts and advances of the kingdom of God, of which 
he is the Head. If dogmatics suffers him to recede 
into the background with reference to the consumma- 
tion, it would make him a person of transitory im- 
portance — which would inevitably work backward, 
shaking the whole Christology, and the doctrine of 
the self -revealing God. 

5. The presupposition of the consummation of the 
Church and the kingdom of God, is the perfecting of 
the individual believers. Again, since individuals de- 
part from this earth without being already holy, 1 the 
perfection of individuals is dependent upon their 
continued personal existence or immortality, which, 

1 Also according to the Cat. Maj., 501, 502, shall we first at the 
resurrection become entirely pure and holy. Comp. For. Con., 
719, 7 ; sin inheres also in the soul. 



54 THE FUTURE STATE. 

however, is still to be distinguished from the resur- 
rection. There is no evidence which compels belief 
in immortality ; as was shown in the doctrine of man, 
it stands fast upon the fact of the possession of the 
image of God, i.e., in the last relation, on God. 1 The 
true conception of God places the worth of man 
and of personality so high, and God's will of love for 
communion with man so firm, that immortality has 
therein its pledge. On account of his essential re- 
lation to God man has the infinite destination and or- 
dination not to die, which comes through God for 
believers to its full realization of eternal life. But 
also the relation of the wicked to God is a relation 
of infinite importance such as nature has not. Some 
(and not simply the Socinians) allow immortality only 
to the regenerate, 2 while annihilation befalls the in- 
corrigibly wicked. 

Observation. — For the opinion that man has no 
natural immortality, but that it is first a gift of 
Christian grace, many voices in the ancient church 
•declare themselves, e.g., B. Arnobius, and com- 
pare the article Tatian by Moller, in Herzog's 
Th. Real-Encyc. So Weisse, Rothe, and others ; 
but especially in the most recent times this opinion 

1 Matt xxii. 29-32. Comp. above, vol. i. sec. 42. 

2 This, according to Dodwell, is imparted through the mediation 
of the true church, and the sacraments, consequently not to the 
dissenters. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 55 

has been represented by Edward White. x It 
may be urged in behalf of this view that immor- 
tality cannot be assumed in the sense that the 
soul by virtue of its own power cannot die. We 
have seen before 8 that the proof of the immor- 
tality of the soul from the simplicity of its being 
will not hold. According to Psalm civ. 29, if 
God withdraws his breath, the consequence is 
that the creature perishes. In fact, our soul does 
not have by nature life in itself, i.e., the power 
of life, for then it would have aseity, which 
Rothe, indeed, ascribes to the spirits made per- 
fect, but which in the proper absolute sense be- 
longs only to God (of whom it is said he alone 
has immortality) ; in a relative sense, indeed, also 
to the creature ; but only so, that God, in every 
moment, lets his preserving will work together 
with it. But if, according to this, it is also ad- 
mitted that, as in reference to the body, so also in 
reference to the soul in itself considered, the for- 
mula is to be rejected : non potest mori, as well 
as the other formula, non potest non mori : it does 
not follow from that, directly, that any actual hu- 
man being will fall a prey to annihilation, and only 
the regenerate be really immortal ; for it remains 
possible that to all men a continuing existence may 
be lent from God. In no event can the death of 
the body be regarded, with materialism and pan- 
theism, as the cause also of the death of the soul 

1 In his work, Life in Christ, translated into French by Byse, 
under the title, L'Immortalite Conditionelle, Paris, 1880, who ad- 
duces a long list of representatives of the same opinion from 
Switzerland, England, and North America ; and from Germany, 
beside Eothe, H. Schultz, Gess, with doubtful right, also, Nitzsch. 

2 Vol. i., sec. 42. 



5^ THE FUTURE STATE. 

for the unregenerate. Rather must we abide by 
this, that the human soul is already, in itself, supe- 
rior to the potencies of nature, and unreachable by 
them ; consequently, at all events, it may survive 
the destruction of the body. It would be still 
another question whether the soul, through hostile 
powers within itself, i.e., through evil, might not 
become decayed, and be given over to destruction, 
concerning which we shall have something to say 
further on. In our present connection, it is suffi- 
cient to see the possibility of the harmonious per- 
fection of the kingdom of God given in this, that 
the prospect lies before us of its becoming free from 
all hindering hostile powers — namely, if they do 
not choose to be embodied in it, thereby either they 
shall fall a prey to destruction, or they shall remain 
banished from the perfected kingdom of God. 
Only on the supposition that a being which was 
human could pass over into a lower class of exist- 
ence, so that the possession of the image of God in 
it should be absolutely extinguished, could that ca- 
pacity also for immortality be extinguished in it. 

6. Christianity, however, does not simply announce 
immortality ; there is also, according to it, a consum- 
mation for the individual. 1 A simple progression into 
infinity cannot be sufficient for the taking away of 
evil. Evil is no infinite greatness like the good. It 
may be said, indeed, perfection would be uniformity. 
But rather it is the nature of evil to tend toward the 
sameness of death ; vitality and richness lie in that 
which is positive, in the spirit and the divine good, 

1 Phil. i. 6. Eph. i. 3, 4. 1 Cor. xv. 22. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 57 

which also shall not fail of its corresponding nature 
for its self -manifestation in the individual and in so- 
ciety. Sin hinders the unfolding of the personality 
according to the rich manifoldness of the powers 
which are designed for harmonious co- working ; but 
the power of evil can never prevent the consumma- 
tion of believers, for it is indeed absolutely condem- 
nable, yet not absolutely strong, but a finite quantity ; 
while, on the other hand, the power of redemption is 
an infinite one. It is the power of unquenchable 
eternal life, which shall never be conquered, so that 
already, through the simple, continuing growth of the 
power of sanctification, evil must be overcome and 
excluded. 

7. But as believers, instead of remaining as a frag- 
ment shall attain perfection, so also shall the Church 
and the kingdom of God. 1 The isolated individual 
cannot be made perfect ; that would be no true con- 
summation, for he is also a member and needs the 
whole for his own perfection in blessedness ; the con- 
sciousness of the race, which is made perfect in love, 
cannot attain, without fellowship, its absolute satisfac- 
tion and realization. Moreover, without the indi- 
viduals, who also have to carry in themselves the 
whole, in whom the whole must live, — without their 
preservation and perfection, there would be no con- 
summation for the whole organism ; the members — ■ 

1 John x. 16. xvii. 13. 19. 23. Eph. i. 10. 1 Cor. xv. 2C. 



5§ THE FUTURE STATE. 

the whole and the parts — demand each other mutually 
for their perfection. More specifically, there belongs 
to the perfection of the whole : 

First. The full number of members who constitute 
the organism. Consequently the succession of gener- 
ations must first follow one another long enough, the 
securing of living members from them must continue 
long enough, for all its essential members to be em- 
bodied in the organism. It may not be concluded from 
this, that either all men, as sanctified members, will 
be embodied in this organization, or, with the falling 
away of any, this organism must remain unperfected. 
For, independently of this consideration, that God, if 
he had fore-knowledge of what is free, could have 
also drawn up the idea of the organism, taking into 
the account those who shall exclude themselves from 
it ; He can also, by virtue of his creative power, allow 
the succession of the generations to continue so long 
that the number shall be filled which is necessary for 
the whole. Consequently, should any fall out, then 
a compensation through the divine creative power 
would have to be supposed. 1 

Secondly. To the actuality of the consummation of 
the Church belongs also a cessation of reproduction, 
through which there is constantly renewed a world 
which the Church must subdue ; but that presupposes 

1 Comp. Matt. xxv. 28. There are not wanting talents enough 
for the work. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 59 

a transforming of earthly relations. To marry and 
be given in marriage 1 belongs to the present seon, 
which did not always exist, as little as this earth of 
ours, and likewise will not always exist. Granting that 
it might be said with some teachers, that the power of 
regeneration, seizing the entire person, will also sanc- 
tify the offspring, and that thereby a pure life will be 
transmitted to the children — a view, however, favored 
neither by Scripture nor experience — this would also 
involve an essential change of the earthly relations, 
to say nothing of the fact that regeneration can never 
become a matter of generation without losing its 
ethical character. 2 That body and spirit in the pres- 
ent aeon are asymptotes, is shown by the old age 
and death of Christians. The bodily and spiritual or- 
ganism are still so loosely connected, and so external 
to one another, that both have their special centres, 
and their own laws of life, which is necessary on 
account of the moral calling of man. 3 

Thirdly. In the perfected kingdom of God none 
who is impure can have a place, but the number 
which actually comprises the kingdom must contain 
what belongs to the perfect body of Christ, and those 
who are not to be received into it must also stand out- 
side the idea of the perfected kingdom of God. 



1 Luke xx. 35. 2 John iii. 3. 

3 Comp. above, Vol. 1 , Sec. 39. 



60 THE FUTURE STATE. 

Observation. — For obvious reasons the old doo> 
matics have not sufficiently developed eschatology. 
Compared with other dogmas this doctrine lacks 
both precision and certainty. The New Testament 
even, as we shall see, leaves many enigmas and un- 
determined points remaining; therefore the escha- 
tological portion of doctrine may rightly be called, 
with Schleiermacher, prophetic. But the statements 
of the New Testament are here prophetic, also, in 
the sense that there are not wanting great fixed 
lines which permit an eschatological doctrine to be 
laid down. In the ecclesiastical eschatology hither- 
to, however, the following defects are particularly 
prominent: First, So far as individuals are con- 
cerned, it supposes between this present existence 
and the consummation no such intermediate state 
as to prevent a decision being reached over all 
— over their definitive worth and destiny — with 
the conclusion of this life. Secondy, If death 
at once decides everything, then that would antici- 
pate the final judgment, not only with reference 
to the lot of the wicked, but also of believers. 
For even the importance of the resurrection seems 
threatened if immediately after death, without 
any limitation, blessedness ensues. Thirdly, It is 
suspicious, moreover, that the interest for holiness 
recedes behind the interest for blessedness, as 
appears in this, that the old dogmatics make 
complete freedom from all imperfection and sin 
follow for the justified, without further ado, upon 
the laying aside of the body. So far as relates 
to the whole, the old dogmatics, in the first place, 
have not been agreed in the choice between the 
twofold possibility of the consummation, as either 
a new creation, or the summit of a development ; 
further, whether the latter will be a purely imma- 



THE FUTURE STATE. 6l 

nent and gradual process, or by means of crises, 
and in such a way that the severest conflicts will 
take place at the end ; finally, whether the vic- 
tory of the heavenly forces will be brought to pass 
abruptly, or whether a process of interpenetration 
of the earthly with the heavenly influence, ethi- 
cally mediated, is to be supposed. Further, the 
uncertainty as to what the antichristian power is 
(whether a universal heathen state, or Mohamme- 
danism, or the Papacy, or whether it be in general 
powers of lying and hate within the church, which 
enter into league with the world-power for the per- 
secution of believers), has influence again upon the 
question of the millennium and its conception, as 
well as upon the idea of the nature and time of 
Christ's second coming. Moreover, down to our 
own times, different opinions prevail as to whether 
the earthly life of mankind is meant merely to 
have the importance of a probation and prepara- 
tion for another life, in which first the real end of 
life lies ; or whether, also, there fall within this 
present life morally valuable ends and works of 
eternal significance, in which already elements of 
the realization of the goal of the world are to be 
seen. This is closely connected with the question 
whether, as the Old Testament and the doctrine 
of a millenium assume, this earthly arena (and 
this world-period) are capable of, and should be 
deemed worthy to become, a representation of the 
kingdom of God, or whether the realization of the 
kingdom of God should be conceived purely as heav- 
enly and above this earth. Finally, the doctrine 
of the old dogmatics concerning the consummation 
of the world is too spiritualistic, and does not know 
how to assign to nature enough significance in 
relation to the spirit. To come approximately to 



62 THE FUTURE STATE. 

a decision upon these questions ought not to be 
regarded as impossible. If eschatology, in the an- 
cient church, assumed a dominating position over 
the whole faith, so that even Christology was pow- 
erfully determined and furthered by it, so now the 
other dogmas in their rich development have in 
turn to render service to eschatology. 1 

1 This is a fruitful suggestion for the reconsideration of escha- 
tology. Most of the questionings and doubts concerning the re- 
ceived doctrines of the future life do not come to us from with- 
out the Church, hut have their source in the heart of faith. It 
is the Christian spirit that prompts to renewed searching of the 
Scriptures upon these dark problems of retribution. Have we 
brought all the Scriptural teachings and suggestions into our dog- 
mas concerning these subjects ? Do the Scriptures give us a 
clear, harmonious, and full disclosure, or only a prophetic revela- 
tion of the future life — a revelation adapted to present practical 
ends ? These are questionings, not of doubt, but of faith, and they 
can be met only as we may be able to follow the suggestion given 
above, and to harmonize our eschatology with the present "rich 
developments" of other doctrines.— Tr. 



THE FIRST DOCTRINAL PART. 

the second coming of christ with its preparation 
in the history of the world. 

Sec. 152. 

Individuals, as well as the Church and the kingdom 
of God, await their consummation from the sec- 
ond coming of Christ, which forms the centre of 
the whole eschatology of the New Testament, 
and serves not only for the overcoming of all 
hostile powers, but also for the realization of 
the idea both of the individual and the Whole. 
This second coming is not made dispensable or 
superfluous by any previous development of the 
individual and the Whole in this world or the 
next, since it alone brings the complete conquest 
of sin and death — to the individual in the resur- 
rection, and to the Whole by the transfiguration 
of the world, by the exclusion of evil, and the 
consummation of the church of God. 



64 THE FUTURE STATE. 



I. — The Biblical Doctrine of Chrisfs Second Coming. 



»j 



The expectation of Christ's personal reappearing 
held by the entire primitive church, and even by the 
apostles, is rooted not simply in their personal wishes, 
or even in their earthly hopes of the Messiah, but is 
based upon various discourses of Christ himself, 1 
which treat expressly of his second coming at the end 
of the world. Attempts have been made in different 
ways to explain away these declarations of Christ. 
Some suppose a wrong understanding of the words 
of Jesus on the part of the disciples. Others would 
limit the discourses concerning the second coming to 
an announcement of the resurrection of Christ. 
Others think to find relief by explaining, e.g., in ac- 
cordance with Luke, the two other synoptics. Others, 
still, get rid of the problem by assuming that Christ 
himself has erred in the discourses in question, which 
they would find compatible with his dignity. To the 

1 Matt. xxiv. and xxv. Mark xiii. Luke xxi. (Comp. xvii. 20- 
37 ; xii. 39, 40, 42-46) ; Matt. xxv. 1-13 ; 14-30. 31-46. Comp. 
Luke xix. 11 sq. Mark viii. 38; ix. 1 ; x. 28 sq.; xiv. 25, 62, 
with the parallel passages ; Luke xii. 35-38. Matt. x. 23; xiii. 
34-30 ; xxviii. 20. Acts i. 11. 2 Thess. ii. 8. 1 Thess iv. 15 
sq.; v. 23. 1 Cor. xv. 23. Phil. iv. 5. 1 John ii. 18. 1 Peter 
iv. 7. James v. 8. Rev. i. 3. iii. 11 ; xix. 11 ; xx. 4, 11 ; xxii. 
7 ; x. 12. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 65 

latter it has been rightly replied 1 that the thought of 
the parousia on the lips of Jesus cannot be deemed a 
conception lying only on the periphery and accommo- 
dated to the times ; but that it would have touched 
the centre of Jesus' thought of salvation, if he could 
have erred with reference to the announcement of 
his parousia ; 2 for, as Schleiermacher rightly saw, 
Christ's second coming forms the real centre of the 
entire Christian eschatology, 3 and we shall recognize 
its dogmatic importance in reference to the person, of- 
fice, and kingdom of Christ, however important it may 
be to take into account the figurative phraseology in 
the exposition of this fundamental thought. A warn- 
ing against ascribing a subordinate importance to the 
parousia-discourses should have been found in the 
circumstance, that the eschatology of the Old Testa- 
ment and the Jewish expectation of the Messiah gen- 
erally contain no idea answering to the second parousia, 
but regard everything as given and decided at once 
with the appearance of the Messiah, and that all pre- 
Christian conceptions are essentially modified by the 

1 So by Weissenbach ; Der Weiderkunftsgedanke Jesu, 1873, 
p. 31-37, who would refer the words of Jesus about bis second 
coming to tbe resurrection. 

2 Also tbe many testimonies to Cbrist's announcement of bis 
second coming agree so well tbat tbey cannot rest upon a misun- 
derstanding of tbe disciples. 

3 Cbr. Glaube, ii., s. 483, sec. 150, 3. 



66 THE FUTURE STATE. 

announcement of a second parousia of Christ. The 
Old Testament prophets had spoken of the day of the 
Lord, the great judgment-day of God, as the first 
act of the Messianic age which decides everything. 
Christ set forth still another parousia as the first, and 
the judgment only as the last. 1 But the expression 
parousia certainly has various meanings. Christ 
promises that he will be present (yraptov) in all events 
and developments of his earthly church, and will 
always accomplish what it needs, which presupposes 
not merely his continued life and participation in 
his church, but also his continuous activity and 
power, which can and will stand security for the 
church. He therefore thinks of this presence of his 
(rrapovcria) as in part invisible, but always as real — 
the former, when he says : "Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst of them ; " 2 or : " I am with you always, to the 
end of the world ; " or when he promises : "If any 
man love me, I will love him, and manifest myself unto 
him, and my Father will love him ; and we will come 
unto him and make our abode with him ; " 3 or when 

1 Comp. my Hist, of Doctr. of Person of Christ, I. 241 sq. All 
that is known to the pre-Christian Jewish Apocalyptics also is, 
that on his appsarance the Messiah will at once found a kingdom 
of earthly prosperity. A double parousia it knows not ; that 
which later seems to comprehend it vanishes as a deception. 

2 Matt, xviii. 20; xxviii. 20. 

3 John xiv. 18, 21, 23, 28 ; also xiv. 3 may be applied here. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 67 

he says of faith in general that it receives him. 1 
The whole doctrine of his word and the means of 
grace is only understood in its real divine-human 
import when these means of grace are regarded as 
the outward media, through which, in virtue of his 
heavenly, regal office, he efficaciously continues his 
presence with believers. But he also promised his 
visible second advent. Here come in his reappear- 
ances after his resurrection, which as a fulfilment of 
his prediction, 2 on the one hand, seal the certainty of 
his enduring, invisible communion with them, and on 
the other were to be a real foretype of his visible, 
universally discernible, second coming at the judgment 
and consummation of the world. We have to linger 
with this latter return. With reference to that, His 
parousia in the course of history has the significance 
of its preparation. This all the apostles and ancient 
Christendom maintain with all the energy of love and 
hope as their dearest faith. Their longing anticipated 
his second coming earlier than the event showed. 3 It 
is in keeping with this fact that so little is found in 
the New Testament respecting the state of individuals 
between death and the resurrection. But more intima- 
tions are given respecting the phases of development 
through which the kingdom of Christ on earth has to 

1 John vi. 50-58. 2 John xvi. 16 ff. 

3 Heb. x. 37. 2 Pet. iii. 9, 10. Jas. v. 8, 9. 1 Thess. iv. 15 ff. 
2 Thess. ii. 7 ff. 1 John ii. 18. 



68 THE FUTURE STATE. 

run in conformity with Christ's own lot until his sec- 
ond coming. These phases are so viewed that Christ's 
second coming is not superseded by them, but ap- 
pears still more necessary. Nor ought the millen- 
nium, according to the meaning of the Revelation of 
John, to be conceived as forestalling Christ's coming 
again to judgment. 1 Else there would arise a colli- 
sion with the general type of New Testament teach- 
ing. But the biblical doctrine of the antichristian 
powers is of importance for the apprehension of the 
entire history of the kingdom of the future. 

The New Testament does not agree with a theory 
which assumes merely a quiet, steadily growing inter- 
penetration or subjugation of the whole world by 
Christianity in the course of history. This is the opti- 
mistic view, which is prepared for no eclipses of the 
sun in the firmament of the church. The New Testa- 
ment foretells catastrophes to the life of the church, so 
that in this respect also it is a copy of the life of Christ ; 
and indeed catastrophes arise not only through perse- 
cutions on the part of heathen and Jews in its begin- 
ning, but also out of itself ; i.e., from its outer circle, 
on the ground of intimations of Christ 2 according to 
John and Paul, 3 when the Christianizing of the na- 

1 Comp. Briggs, ut supra. This is clear from what follows first 
after chap. xx. 

2 Matt. vii. 21 ; xxiv. 11. 12. 24. Mark xiii. 6, 22. 

3 1 John ii. 18, where antichrists are spoken of in the plural. 
2 Thess. ii., 3ff., frvopos. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 6g 

tions shall be already advanced, false prophets and 
pseudo-Messiahs will arise, who will desire to enter 
into confederacy with Satan, and in part also with 
the world-power, against Christians, and to seduce 
to denial of Christ These are the powers of an- 
tichrist which are conceived indeed as already workr 
ing in the days of the apostles, and are to be dis- 
cerned by believers, 1 but which strive after still more 
concentrated manifestation, and shall attain in the 
end still greater power. In Hevelation the same 
thing has other names. Besides Satan, mention is 
here made of the Tropvrj (whore) 2 and of false proph- 
ets. 3 The "beast" of Revelation 4 is the world- 
power hostile to God. The antichristian power is a 
union of the falsification of the truth and divine wor- 
ship with the hostile world-power, the result of 
which is a pseudo-Messiahship. Paul seems to re- 
gard the man of sin as an incarnation of the evil an- 
tichristian power, and as an individual. 5 He is called 
by Paul the adversary who raises himself against 
everything that is called God and the worship of 
God. "With his denial of God and blasphemy are 

1 2 Thess. 2, 7. 2 Rev. xvii. 1, 5. 15 ff.; xix. 2. 

3 Rev. xvi. 13 ; xix. 20 ; xx. 10. Comp. 2 Peter ii. 

4 Rev. xiii. 1 ff. ; xiii. 11 n\; xiv. 9 ■ xv. 2 ; xvi. 10 ; xvii. 8 n\; 
xix. 19 ; xx. 10. 

6 In John also mtIxpiotos occurs in the singular. 1 John ii. 22 ; 
iv. 3 ff. 2 John 7. 



70 THE FUTURE STATE. 

connected self -deification and false worship. 1 He is 
still hindered in his coming forth by the Karkyjav 
(state and law). He himself is called the lawless, not 
because he goes forth from the heathen, but because 
he casts aside all bonds in a false freedom and ca- 
price. 2 Before the end a revelation is to be expected 
of this evil power standing in connection with Satan, 
and at the same time an apostasy from Christianity. 3 
Directly, however, upon the supremacy of the anti- 
christian powers, as to which there is agreement in 
the New Testament, will follow the manifestation of 
Christ's glory and power which is connected with the 
second coming of Christ. 4 

Here a difference emerges between Revelation and 
the other New Testament writings. While the lat- 
ter join the judgment and the consummation of the 
"world to Christ's second advent, Revelation interposes 
another phase. It makes a thousand years' of the do- 
minion of Christ fall into this earthly world-period, 
and before the final decisive struggle and the victory 
of Christ. But the meaning of the passage is disputed. 
According to one interpretation, the martyrs and 
saints will be previously raised to life in a first resur- 
rection with glorified bodies. According to others, 

1 2 Thess. ii. 4. 2 2 Tbess. ii. 3-7. 

8 Ibid. ii. 3. Revelation speaks of a mark of tlie beast. 
4 2 Tliess. ii. 3. Rev. xix. , and xx. 2-7. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 7 1 

their resurrection only means endowment with power 
in order to their reigning with Christ. 1 It is further 
disputed, whether according to Revelation Christ will 
be visible upon earth during the millennium, or will 
come again at the millennium only in the sense of 
the triumph and glorious manifestation of the power 
of the Gospel — upon which depends the other ques- 
tion, whether the joint reigning of the saints w T ith 
Christ will take place invisibly and therefore spirit- 
ually in heaven, while the earth remains the old earth, 
or else upon earth. 2 After the millennium Revela-" 
tion regards Satan as loosed once more for a short 
time, and Gog and Magog are to march against the 
holy city, whereby consequently the earthly relations 
in the millennium are viewed as essentially the same 

1 In Rev. xx. 6, it is merely said that they are raised to inner 
life, not that they have already a resurrection-body. If the irpcoT-rj 
ava.0 raais signifies that a second still follows for them, by the first 
resurrection might be understood their rising again in a spiritual 
sense, as a second coming of Elias is seen in the Baptist. Matt, 
xvii. 12. Mark ix. 11-13. But if they are raised in body, this 
may contain a hint that the resurrection of the body does not take 
place at once for all humanity, but ever according to the state of 
ripeness. 

2 Bengel takes the first view. On the other hand, v. Hof mann 
and Florcke think that during the millennium a portion of the 
earth (Palestine) will be glorified, the rest of the earth not, — a 
thought in agreement with the eminent importance which they 
with others believe must be assigned to the Jewish nation in rela- 
tion to the consummation of the world. 



72 THE FUTURE STATE. 

as the old ones. But if this is so, it is not probable 
that the author is thinking of a visible government 
of Christ with saints raised in glorified bodies on the 
old earth. Neither Christ's visible return, nor a glo- 
rifying and transforming of the world, is promised 
in the Apocalypse for the thousand years' kingdom, 
but the only characteristic of Christ's second coming 
mentioned with certainty is the joint reigning of the 
saints with Christ upon thrones, and the temporary 
binding of Satan's power, which latter may just as 
well take place on the outwardly unchanged earth as 
the time of the unchaining of his power. Only after 
the last conflict with the antichristian powers follow 
the last judgment 1 and the revelation of Christ in 
glory, together with the account of the new heaven 
and the new earth, and, with these cosmical changes, 
the general resurrection is connected. 2 

Paul has not this doctrine of the millenium. But 
he seems, however, to have expected a flowering- time 
for Christianity in the earthly world-period, before 
the end of the world, in consequence of the Chris- 
tianization of all nations and also of the Jews. 3 



1 Rev. xx. 10 sq. 

2 Rev. xx. 11-15 ; xxi. 1. Comp. 2. Peter ii. 

3 Rom. xi. 15. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 73 

II. — The Church Doctrine of the History of the 
Kingdom of God up to the Second Coming of 
Christ. 

In the ancient church, np to Constantine, was 
understood by the antichrist chiefly the heathen state, 
and, to some extent, unbelieving Judaism (which 
vied with it in hatred against Christianity) ; and 
the consummation of the kingdom of God was ex- 
pected from its overthrow, while the perfecting of 
individuals was looked for in their resurrection. 
From Augustine's day the church became accustomed 
to regard the Civitas Dei as substantially realized in 
the world, especially where the state was subordinated 
to its ordinances. In this way down into the middle 
ages the basis was taken away for a doctrine of a 
future antichrist, and a future thousand years' reign. 
The eschatological hope cooled off, nay, froze, in 
growing self -contentment, on the part of the church, 
with its external splendor ; but Mohammedanism, 
so long as it was dangerous, took the place of the 
antichrist, yet without exerting any influence of im- 
portance upon the form of eschatology. The Re- 
formation, under the impression of the profound cor- 
ruption within the church itself, in the conflict with 
this corruption, saw in its centre the Roman papacy, 
the antichrist. The ardor of eschatological expecta- 



74 THE FUTURE STATE. 

tions revived somewhat again in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and sketched for itself fantastic and revolu- 
tionary pictures of the future in the Anabaptist 
commotions, in which carnal notions of a millennium 
fermented. The Judaistic, theocratic confounding of 
the civil and ecclesiastical in Anabaptism was rejected 
by the .Reformers, whose chief concern was about the 
certainty of reconciliation and eternal life, not about 
the sensuous well-being and satisfaction of the out- 
ward man. Thus it was not merely a matter of policy 
to separate from the chiliastic movements of the six- 
teenth century, but an inner necessity, and the Conf. 
Aug. rejects such carnal Chiliasm on this ground. On 
the other hand, the Reformation, like ancient Christen- 
dom in its way, had not at once a consciousness of the 
world-historical work for humanity, the State, and the 
entire world of culture, imposed on the Protestant 
principle ; but was conscious of inwardly sharing in 
the supreme good, in faith and the certainty of justifi- 
cation, without seeking, especially in the Lutheran 
Confession, a more precise, positively influential re- 
lation to the State, which was left free on principle. 
If the supreme good is already given, a further ad- 
vance of history may seem superfluous, and so, in fact, 
in the Evangelical Church the approaching end of the 
world was expected. !Nbt that the hope of the con- 
summation of Christ's kingdom was given up ; but, 
without entering into the consideration of the medi- 



THE FUTURE STATE. 7$ 

ation required for it, it was conceived as abruptly es- 
tablishing itself with Christ's second coming — a purely 
divine work in a new heaven and a new earth, after 
the destruction of the present world. And in the same 
manner for the individual, just as for the church, 
the moral process was abridged, because everything 
seemed to be so given with the beginning — faith — 
that death was conceived as leading immediately to 
inner perfection. Justification was so closely con- 
nected in thought with blessedness that the. latter 
was represented as given of itself by the resurrection 
in a new glorified world, without the reservation of a 
mediating moral development of the person, conse- 
quently through a physical process. The consequence 
of holding that, according as one departs from the 
world believing or not believing, his eternal, happy, 
or unhappy fate is already decided, was necessarily 
an emptying, and therefore an abolition, of the inter- 
mediate kingdom, to which indeed such great abuses 
had already become attached. Essential importance 
scarcely remains even for the judgment, and the sig- 
nificance of the resurrection for blessedness, if all be- 
lievers enter at once into blessed life, and the impeni- 
tent into damnation. The second coming of Christ 
himself, supposed to be near at hand, was so con- 
ceived that the consummation of the world presup- 
posed a destruction of the world. Kot a renewal of 
the old, but the creation of a new world, was ex- 



7& THE FUTURE STATE. 

pected, for example, by Gerhard and Quenstedt — a 
view which was closely connected with the prevalence 
of a spiritualistic conception and a contempt for mat- 
ter and nature. As there was no thought of a new 
world-historical mission of the evangelical church, so 
particularly there was no thought of the conversion 
of heathen and Jews, contrary to the words of Jesus 
and his apostles. 

It is sufficient, so the dogmatic theologians thought, 
if out of every nation merely a sample are saved. 
The Jews could be judged because their fathers, 
and to some extent they themselves, might have 
had the Gospel ; but the heathen, because they, for- 
sooth, might come to Christendom, and there obtain 
Christianity. 1 A different tone has prevailed in the 
evangelical church only since Spener's day. With 
him evangelical faith, inspired with new life, advanced 
as in the early Christian time to hope ; and since hope 
sketches for itself ideals of the period of consumma- 
tion, this hope kindled the mind for the world-his- 
torical mission of the church, and, as in the begin- 
ning, the Christian spirit turned from eschatology to 
the Church's work of love in the earth, to foreign, 
and soon also to home missions. 2 The conversion of 

1 Dorner's view of the maimer in which this orthodoxy ener- 
vated missionary zeal in the evangelical church in Germany, is 
worthy of attention. — Tr. 

2 This was a return to the principle upon which Jesus com- 



THE FUTURE STATE. 77 

the heathen and of Jews begins to enter with Spener 
into the circle of Christian hope among evangelicals, 
and is recognized as the preliminary condition of 
Christ's second coming and the consummation. Upon 
this naturally followed again an approximation to the 
doctrine of the millennium in the form of the " hope 
of better days." Still delight in work of this kind 
remained somewhat isolated, until in the present cen- 
tury, with increasing force, Protestantism began to 
comprehend its historical mission to its own people 
abroad and at home. For this reason, all questions 
touching Christ's second coming, especially its pre- 
liminary conditions (the conversion of the Jews and 
heathen, the doctrine of antichrist, the millennium), 
have again in recent days come into lively discussion. 
However different the theories on many points in this 
respect (e.g., whether a visible rule of Christ upon 
earth with risen saints before the end of the world, 
whether a millennium in any sense, is to be taught ; 
whether it lies behind us, whether the antichrist is 
to be regarded as a principle revealing itself in many 
persons in the entire course of history, or as a person 
in whom evil is concentrated), on this point there is 

manded his disciples to preach his Gospel to all nations. Mis- 
sions should rest upon the Christian law of love ; — the love of 
Christ constrained the first great missionary apostle. So universal 
a cause cannot without hazard be made to rest upon the apex of 
some particular point of doctrine. — Tr, 



78 THE FUTURE STATE. 

increasing agreement, that the judgment is impos- 
sible before all nations have heard the Gospel and 
had the possibility of believing ; and the tendency 
is more and more to believe that the process of 
consummation in the case of individuals and of the 
whole must be conceived not as merely physical, ac- 
complished either through death or the transforma- 
tion of the world, or through the external power of 
Christ, but as at the same time running its course ac- 
cording to ethical laws. 

Observation. — Chiliasm has taken very different 
forms. Its crudest form looked for a happy king- 
dom of sensuous enjoyments and outward splendor. 
In one word, it is eudeemonistic. Such was the 
Chiliasm of antiquity and the Anabaptist Chiliasm 
of the age of the Reformation. In it the rule of 
the saints over the heathen and unbelievers plays a 
great part. The older Chiliasm is specially distin- 
guished from the Anabaptist by this feature, that 
it passively awaits Christ's second coming and the 
descent of the heavenly Jerusalem, and at most re- 
quires (in Montanism by a direction of its prophets) a 
moral preparation for the millennium, whereas the 
fanatical and revolutionary Chiliasm of the Anabap- 
tists would hasten the coming of the millennium 
by its own action, nay, itself finally introduce and 
establish it by means of force. In the older Chili- 
asm, as in the age of the Reformation, less stress 
falls on the visible presence of Christ's person and 
on the inner rule of the Christian spirit, than upon 
the visible issuing forth of the power and glory of 
his kingdom as a dominion of the saints, not merely 



THE FUTURE STATE. 79 

their deliverance from hostile oppression or from 
evils, which the present state of nature brings with 
it. The more abrupt the form in which the open- 
ing of the chiliastic world-period is conceived, the 
less the interest in an ethical mediation of the con- 
summation. The gross, carnal style of thought 
which was able, in the two chief forms just men- 
tioned, to unite itself with the circle of ideas of the 
early Christian milieu ium, usually in our days lets 
drop the connection with Christianity and its hopes. 
All the more common, on the other hand, in our 
days, are other Chiliasms of a more spiritual tone, 
whose common character is that they despair of the 
possibility of mankind being saved, and the church 
rescued from inner and outer dissolution, with the 
means hitherto at the service of Christianity — Chili- 
asms which look for a new glorious flowering-time 
of the church under the government of Christ, 
visible or invisible, when the means of salvation 
which are lacking shall have been bestowed upon 
it by God. Here belongs, first, according to a wide- 
spread notion, the conversion of the Jewish nation. 
Gentile Christians, it is said, have from the first 
(from Paul) a spiritualistic Christianity. It is neces- 
sary to assert the realism of Scripture which de- 
signed the people of the Old Testament to be the 
centre of the nations, to be the ruling, organizing 
power for humanity; as to which the predictions of 
the Old Testament respecting the Holy Land, Je- 
rusalem, Ezekiel's temple and sacrifice, are not yet 
fulfilled, and therefore must yet be fulfilled. And 
although, in modern days, less weight is placed 
upon these characteristics of the Old Testament, 
all the more is it frequently insisted that the right 
strength and the right success will be wanting for 
heathen missions until Israel is converted. But, 



80 THE FUTURE STATE. 

according to Paul, conversely, the unbelief of Israel 
as a nation will continue until the fulness of the 
heathen be brought in, and Israel can grasp with 
hands, so to speak, what the Christian nations 
already have. As a second means of salvation, a 
new outpouring of the Holy Spirit is expected in va- 
rious ways. The degree of his outpouring hitherto 
experienced, it is said, no longer suffices for the 
needs of the present, before which the Gospel no 
longer proves itself, or can prove itself, the quickening 
and preserving salt, with the exception of individual 
souls, in which it still shows its energy. But the 
Gospel and its power is eternally young, and can 
never grow old. Moreover, the sin of men, although 
different in degree, is the same in essence, as is the 
character of the human heart in need of redemption. 
Distrust of the sufficient strength of the Gospel for 
the mission which the church has upon earth must 
cripple hope and zeal in labor for the kingdom of 
God — at all events, in that which is remote from all 
organized life of Christian communion — and limit 
the activity of Christian love, also, toward scattered 
individuals. Finally, others find the ground of all 
evils of the church in the want, since the death of 
the apostles, of an organizing divine authority for 
all its ordinances, especially for the employment of 
gifts in the right places, and consequently for the 
distribution of offices. Hence they find the means 
of preparation for Christ's parousia in the restora- 
tion of the primitive apostolate. But this is to lay, 
in a Catholicizing spirit, such stress on the outward 
form and institution of the church as is out of 
harmony with the material principle of faith, and 
denies the sufficiency of Holy Scripture, in which 
we possess the true continuance of the apostolate. 
A common feature in all these grosser or more 



THE FUTURE STATE. 8l 

refined Cliiliasms is, that they regard that to which 
their principal interest is directed as not secured or 
given in Christianity hitherto, and consequently re- 
gard the Gospel as inadequately equipped for that 
which pertains to believers or the Church, even in- 
deed upon earth. Consequently, in one way or 
another, they think too meanly of that which is al- 
ready come and given with Christ's first parousia ; 
and this is an Ebionitic or Judaistic trait. The 
Gnostic or Docetic eschatology is distinguished 
from such a view by this, that in an optimistic, ide- 
alizing spirit it prefers a conception of Christianity 
which makes everything depend only upon the in- 
wardness of faith, on the presence in it of eternal 
life (and therefore for faith the kingdom of God is 
already come), but not on the position that the 
kingdom of God is still coming. In this case the 
power of sin — the antichristian element — is under- 
valued, and this mode of thought is especially 
shown in the fact that the Gnostic eschatology can 
find no place in its theory for the passages of Holy 
Scripture respecting antichristian powers. This Do- 
cetic eschatology, especially when it is based on the 
ideality of faith as the power which has overcome 
the world, certainly involves the truth, that the 
earthly world and history is not merely a preparation 
or time of probation, or has the essence of the su- 
preme good only outside itself. This history and 
world of ours must not be thought empty of the 
divine. It is not too bad for eternal life to be 
already implanted in it. But the Docetic escha- 
tology overlooks the truth contained in Christian 
hope, namely, that to the complete essence of 
Christianity belongs also a manifestation-side, do- 
minion over the outward, not merely the vanquish- 



82 THE FUTURE STATE. 

ing of everything hostile, but also the positive tri- 
umphant unfolding of its import, and the realizing 
of the harmony between spirit and nature. 



III. — Dogmatic Investigation. 

1. In respect to the earthly history of Christianity, 
(even if we ignore the base secular doctrine [Diesseit- 
igkeitslehre] of materialism) two opposite modes of 
thought present themselves. The one thinks the chief 
thing is still wanting even after Christ's manifesta- 
tion, salvation being a matter first of the other world, 
eternal life not a present reality. This undervaluing 
of Christ's first manifestation, of the worth of the 
atonement, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, is a false 
doctrine of the future world (Jenseitigkeitslehre), or 
Ebionitic eschatology. To it approximates the Rom- 
ish doctrine in relation to individuals, so far as it does 
not properly admit an assurance of salvation in the 
temporal life, but seeks to interpose a state of punish- 
ment, even for believers, before the consummation. 
In reference to the Church, Catholicism falls into the 
opposite fault, 1 because it ignores the imperfections 
still cleaving to the earthly Church, and proceeds as 
though the ecclesia militans stood instar triwnphan- 
tis, which of course is only possible because it identi- 

■ — ' — - — 1 — 

1 Because of the professedly perfect constitution, the hierarchy, 
in which it sees the virtual church or its essence. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 83 

lies also the Church and the kingdom of God. 1 Con- 
versely, faith and the inner possession of eternal life 
in this world may be so emphasized in a spiritualistic 
manner, and with indifference to the consummation 
of the whole, as though nothing further were needed, 
because in a spiritual sense " the resurrection is 
passed already, 2 and the realization of Christianity in 
the phenomenal world is a matter of indifference." 
This is false teaching of a spiritualistic kind with ref- 
erence to the present world. The Reformation, re- 
jecting both of these opposite errors, against the 
Catholic doctrine of the future in respect to the indi- 
vidual, emphasizes this world and the worth of this 
earthly life, in virtue of the saving faith and the ex- 
perience of the power of Christ's high-priestly office, 
which may be attained upon the earth ; but still it 
does this in such a way as to leave an essential place 
for the hope of the consummation of the personality. 
On the other hand, as concerns the church and the 
kingdom of God, it does not find their perfect form 
already given in the actuality of the earth. Although 
it believes the consummating principle is embodied in 
Christendom, its existence veiled already in the pres- 
ent, still it turns in this respect chiefly to the future, 
and to the hope of the full unveiling of Christ's king- 

1 With a one-sided doctrine as to the future world, in respect of 
individuals, it unites a false doctrine of the present world in re- 
spect to the church. 2 2 Tim. ii. 18. 



84 THE FUTURE STATE. 

ship, for tlie consummation of individuals and the 
whole, in the consciousness, at the same time, of the 
ethical labor to be performed in behalf of the king- 
dom of God. 

Hence the evangelical eschatology maintains the 
pure Christian character, since it keeps the mean 
between those two extremes, and, on the basis of 
God's kingdom having come, preserves the hope of a 
full coming in visible power in behalf of individuals 
and the whole. Out of the possession in the very 
midst of non-possession, which belongs to faith, is de- 
veloped with eternal youth and freshness the Chris- 
tian confidence that what is still lacking will become 
a blessed possession. 

2. But how, according to Scripture, is the frame- 
work of the earthly history of the church and king- 
dom of God to be filled up ? In relation to the dog- 
matic doctrine of the future phases of development, the 
following points come into notice — the announcement 
of the apostasy to the antichristian side, the question 
of the millennium, and the relation of Christ's second 
advent to both. The first question is: Can the 
greater fierceness of the conflicts, nay, an apostasy 
before the end, be reconciled with the position that 
Christianity will penetrate and influence the world, 
both intensively and extensively, with growing per- 
manence and comprehensiveness % Of course an apos- 
tasy does not follow necessarily from sin taken alone. 



THE FUTURE STATE. S$ 

Sin is not a power, the chief strength of which must 
necessarily reveal itself only at last, and which could 
not be already broken in principle by Christianity 
through faith. The opposite is proved in believers, 
whose sin was originally the same as that of all others. 
If, then, Christianity has already in its beginnings 
shown the strength to accomplish the hardest task — 
the vanquishing of sin in principle — one might think 
that the rest may, and must, be accomplished all the 
more easily. But since the process of Christian 
grace is and remains ethical in character, i.e., since it 
is conditioned by human freedom, it follows directly 
from the growing influence of Christianity in the 
world, that those who nevertheless persevere in resist- 
ance will be impelled and hardened by the stronger 
revelation of Christ to more and more malignant, 
especially to more spiritual forms of wickedness, in 
order to hold their ground against it. In this way, 
then, the apostasy, supported by lying and the sem- 
blance of spiritual being, is the more seductive and 
contagious, and to it even outward apostasy, in increas- 
ing expansion, may attach itself in further develop- 
ment and revelation of the inner state. But the 
transition to this is formed by the inner apostasy 
through falsification of Christianity, which when it 
assumes a spiritual garb is capable of the greatest 
diffusion. Other higher religions look for extension 
by simple growth, and at least uniform victory in the 



86 THE FUTURE STATE. 

main. Christianity shows such confidence in its truth 
and victorious strength, that it predicts a great apostasy 
in reference to the very time when its influence on 
humanity shall have become greatest, while conscious 
also of being equal to the apostasy. Certain of its in- 
destructibleness, from the first it counted on this fact. 
Momentary overthrow it will convert into the foil of 
its more glorious triumph. Have the antichristian 
powers of hell, with their veiled or open hate to 
Christianity, encroached deeply on the history of the 
church, and suppressed the action of its pure principle, 
then it will display its divine victorious strength as it 
never did before. But in this event it can only be 
found fitting that after the apostasy that counterpart 
of which Paul and the Apocalypse speak, also shall 
appear powerfully on earth, in the drama of history, 
so that the heavenly consummation begins its prelude 
on earth. Not that a new world-order must begin as 
concerns sin and death and offspring. But a flower- 
ing-time of the church is perhaps then to be expected, 
especially through the Christianizing of all nations, 1 
because then humanity has again become a unity, 
owning one Shepherd ; because then all charisms, which 
have been bestowed by nature on every nation, must 
tend to the advantage of the whole church ; finalty, 
because even the love of the old Christendom will be 

1 Matt. xxiv. 14, 34 ff. Eom. xi. 15, 25 ff. 



THE FUTURE STATE. Sy 

invigorated by the first love of the newly converted 
nations. This scriptural doctrine, held fast by the 
Christian hope of all times, commends itself also dog- 
matically, on the ground that by these two — the aggra- 
vated conflict and the flowering-time to follow after it 
— the process is marked out visibly in accordance 
with the laws of freedom. But with the Chiliasm of 
Judaism or of the Anabaptists of the age of the Re- 
formation, with their carnal tendency and passsionate, 
impatient eagerness for visible presentation, as well 
as with the doubt of the sufficiency for our actual sal- 
vation of the gifts brought by Christ's first parousia, 
the church has nothing to do. Nor is Christ's second 
advent forestalled by this preliminary flowering- time. 1 

3. Only Christ's visible second advent will be the 
signal for the consummation. To it belongs without 
doubt a dogmatic significance, although nothing more 
precise can be settled respecting its time and form. 

Its significance for individuals results from the 
following consideration. We have seen already in 
several dogmatic places how essential to Christian 
piety is personal living communion with Christ. This 
is of decisive importance for justification on the basis 
of Christ's intercession and substitution, for the Holy 
Baptism, and the Holy Supper. "We need the Head, 
and communion with him, in order to growth and 

1 John x. 16. 



88 THE FUTURE STATE. 

consummation. Christ must stand already invisibly 
before the eye of faith as the living Lord and Saviour, 
if faith is to be living. But also for our future bless- 
edness, we cannot dispense with seeing as he is, Him 
whom we see not, and yet love. 1 Even so, for the 
sake of his person itself it is to be desired that the 
time of his public appearing in glory follow upon the 
time of his divine-human working, which continues 
indeed, but is concealed because carried on through 
the organ of the church — as seeing him as he is 
follows upon the faith of his people ; for it is also 
his loving desire to be thus seen, and by this means 
share his glory with them. 2 We cannot call it pure 
or spiritual Christianity where men wish to adhere 
merely to the Holy Spirit, or the divine nature of 
Christ, whereas the Holy Spirit, as we saw, leads to 
Christ. It is an essential trait of Christian piety not 
to imagine blessedness by itself outside communion 
with Christ. And if Christ is not merely a portion 
of the supreme good, but its centre, while that good 
must be manifested in order to the consummation of 
the world ; so can he by no means remain invisible, but 
through him and his revelation in glory must the king- 
dom of God, which is also his kingdom, be manifested. 
The happy reunion with friends and kindred in the 
body every one wishes and hopes, and yet this is but 

1 1 Pet. i. 8 ; iii. 2. 2 1 Jolin iii. 2. John xvii. 24. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 89 

a secondary matter for the blessedness of believers, 
compared with the necessity of beholding Christ. 
Nay, the full communion with the Head must con- 
tain the security, as well as the rule and the order, 
for all other beholding and reunion ; for we shall be 
mutually related in the world to come, not by the 
laws and ordinances of nature, but by those of the 
kingdom of grace and its majestic Head. 

But the New Testament doctrine of Christ's second 
coming has, besides, significance for the Church and 
the kingdom of God, since through it their earthly 
history comes to a close. It may then be asked, in- 
deed, why is not the leavening of humanity through 
the Holy Spirit in growing measure enough, although, 
according to what has been said, under severe con- 
flicts, nay, catastrophes ? Why is a new creative act 
necessary, instead of a gradual interpenetration and 
illumination, the result of which would be of itself, 
as it were, the visibility of the kingdom of God and 
of Christ ? The answer may perhaps lie in a twofold 
reason. An altogether new attitude of matter and 
nature to the spirit is the condition of the consumma- 
tion, an attitude which the spirit cannot produce out of 
itself, which can only be given to it, and through which 
the entrance of the spirit into the ruling, central posi- 
tion, also, for nature and the body, becomes possible. 1 

1 Comp. also ScMeiermacher, ii. , 486. 



90 THE FUTURE STATE. 

Even as the church, humanity does not all-power- 
f ally govern nature. But while spirit and nature are 
external to each other, the spirit does not yet have its 
perfect power and efficiency. Conversely, also, nature 
needs to be freed from all chaotic and perishable be- 
ing, 1 in order to find its goal ; even as the spirit first 
in the glorification of nature will have the means of 
completely revealing and realizing itself. Therefore 
must the mutually external existence of spirit and 
nature give way to a perfect internal existence. Their 
externality to each other is the ground of the mortal- 
ity of the natural side, and of its being a means of 
temptation to the spiritual side. For in this exter- 
nality the natural side has still too great indepen- 
dence, and exerts a determining power over the per- 
sonality. Christ now so increases the energy of the 
spirit that nothing foreign can longer rule it, while he 
also unites the glorified nature with the spirit without 
identifying them, by the resurrection in connection 
with a cosmical process of world-transformation, for 
which his second advent is the signal. But as in 
this way the false mutual externality of nature and 
spirit is set aside by Christ's second advent, so also 
through it the false mutual internality of good and 
evil in the earthly world-period is brought to a sepa- 
ration. His second advent is a sign of the ripeness 



1 Rom. viii. 21 ff. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 9 1 

of the world for the judgment. The obverse of the 
separation of the heterogeneous is the consummation 
of the communion of everything homogeneous. On 
all these grounds, Christ's second advent is grounded 
in the necessity of the perfect revelation of his Love, 
and Power, and Justice. 

second paet : intermediate state and resurrection. 

Sec. 153. 

There is a resurrection of the dead, which is not 
made superfluous by the intermediate state, but 
is realized through the Lord's second advent in 
order to the consummation of personality. 

I. — Biblical Doctrine. 

1. A series of passages of the New Testament 
can be quoted to show that believers pass by death 
at once into a blessed state, and into closer commun- 
ion with the Lord. To^the thief upon the cross Christ 
says : " To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." * 
Lazarus is carried straight to Abraham's bosom. 3 
" I will come again," says Christ in his farewell dis- 
courses, " and receive you to myself, that where I am 
there ye may be also." 3 Paul knows that a crown of 
righteousness is laid up for him, and that he will be 

1 Luke xxiii. 43. 2 Luke xvi. 22. 3 John xiv. 3. 



92 THE FUTURE STATE. 

saved in His heavenly kingdom ; he longs to be at 
home with the Lord. 1 Revelation pronounces the 
dead blessed from henceforth who die in the Lord. 8 
Passages like these preclude the notion of a sleep of 
the soul, and assert that believers pass through death 
into a better than the earthly state. 3 ^Nevertheless it 
would be a mistake to conclude from the passages 
quoted that perfect, completed blessedness and spirit- 
ual consummation begin for believers immediately 
after death. Paradise indeed is certainly not Hades, 
but a fiovi] for the blessed, 4 and for this reason not 
the heaven which denotes the place or state of the 
perfected blessed. The good work begun is not com- 
pleted on the day of death, but on the day of Jesus 
Christ. 6 On the contrary, a series of passages imply 
that the chief comfort and dearest hope of Christians 
refer not to what they attain directly after death, but 
to what only becomes theirs at Christ's second advent 
and resurrection, to the deposit laid up for them 
and secure for that day. 6 Such great stress is laid on 
the hope of the resurrection, that, in comparison with 
it, the advance to preliminary, higher stages of life 

1 Phil. i. 23. 2 Tim. iv. 8, 18. 

9 Rev. xiv. 13. 3 Phil. i. 21, 23. 

4 Comp. John xiv. 2 ff. 2 Cor. xii. 4. 

5 Phil. i. 6. 

6 1 Pet. v. 4. 2 Tim. i. 12 ; iv. 8. 1 John iii. 2. Rom. viii. 19, 
23. 1 Thess. iv. 13, 14. Col. iii. 4. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 93 

almost vanishes from sight. 1 An anxious longing 
for Christ's revelation in glory is ascribed to the de- 
parted souls of the martyrs under the altar. 2 An 
instantaneous vision of God is not promised. 3 A 
spiritual consummation in relation to volition, feel- 
ing, knowledge, leaving nothing to be added but the 
physical consummation, immediately after death, can- 
not therefore be found in Scripture. 4 For this rea- 
son the advance, which death no doubt brings with it 
for believers, by no means excludes a middle or in- 
termediate state. This state could only be denied if, 
after the separation of the soul from the body, no re- 
union with the body and no judgment w r ere to be 
expected, but if, according to Scripture, a state, ad- 
mitting of no change forever, began at once with 
death. But that there is room for changes even in 
the next world, follows in reference to those who die 
in faith, from the doctrine of their resurrection. Still 
more important must be the changes possible in a 
middle state, in the next world, in relation to those 
who in this life have not become ripe for judgment. 

1 1 Cor. xv. 29 ff. 2 Rev. vi. 9-11. 

3 Neither in Matt. v. 8, nor in 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 

4 When it is said the moral imperfection, which certainly still 
clings to believers on their departure, will be obliterated in a mo- 
ment by death, which brings them the vision of God (Philippi, 
vi. 6-8), in opposition to this is the fact that conversely only the 
pure in heart, or holy, shall see God (Matt. v. 8. Heb. xii. 14). 



94 THE FUTURE STATE. 

Holy Scripture says nothing expressly about them, 
with the exception of the passages in the First Epis- 
tle of Peter considered before, and indeed of all those 
passages, according to which the Gospel must be 
preached to all, and God's purpose of grace applies 
to all. 

2. The New Testament teaches not merely a spirit- 
ual resurrection, which takes place at the new birth, 1 
but also a bodily one, in opposition to Sadduceeism 
and an idealistic philosophy. 2 Certainly in by far the 
most numerous passages merely a resurrection of the 
righteous is spoken of, but in some a general resur- 
rection, without the bodily constitution of the ungodly 
being indicated. 3 On the other hand, in the case of the 
pious the resurrection is thought as a union of the 
spirit with a glorified corporeity, and assimilation of 
believers with the glorified body of Christ, 4 whose 
resurrection is treated as a pattern and pledge of our 
resurrection. 5 The latter will take place in close 

1 Hymenseus and Philetus, 2 Tim. ii. 18, perhaps also the de- 
niers of the resurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 12. 

2 Matt. xxii. 29-32. 1 Cor. xv. Luke xiv. 14 ; xx. 36. Acts 
xxiii. 6 ; xxiv. 15, 21. Heb. vi. 2. John v. 29 ; xi. 24, 25 ; vi. 
44, 54. 

3 John v. 28 ff. Rev. xx. 12-15. Acts xxiv. 15. 2 Cor. v. 10. 
Dan. xii. 2. 

4 Rom. vi. 5. Phil. iii. 20, 21. 1 Cor. xv. 43, 49, 53. 2 Cor. 
v. 3-10. John vi. 39. 1 John iii. 2. 

5 Rom. vi. 4; viii. 10, 11. Col. iii. 4. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 95 

association with cosmical processes. 1 The spirit which 
survives death and corruption, and is in unity with 
God's Spirit, is conceived as co-operative therein, as 
putting on the mortal, in order to transform it into 
an immortal mode of being, the dead body being also 
compared to a seed-corn. 2 

II. — Ckurch Doctrine. 

(Symb. Apost., Conf. Aug., xvii. ; Cat. Maj., 471, 501.) 

1. It has been shown previously (see Appendix, p. 
147) that many of the earliest church teachers taught 
a preaching of the Gospel, as well as the possibility of 
conversion, in Hades. But the Catholic Church, espe- 
cially after the days of Augustine and Gregory the 
Great, not merely assumed in general an intermediate 
time and state between death and the resurrection at 
Christ's second coming, but more and more let all stress 
fall upon this life to such an extent that the definitive 
fate of every one was to be decided at death, and 
those dying without faith in Christ should be lost, 
although transferred to different places of punish- 
ment. Those dying in faith, on the other hand, were 
all to be saved; but only those already holy should' 
enter at once into blessedness ; while Christians in 
general, on the contrary, must suffer still in purgatory 

1 Eom. viii. 21. 1 Thess iv. 14-17. 1 Cor. xv. 51 ff. 2 Pet. 
iii. 3, 10, 13. Rev. xxi. 1. 

2 1 Cor. xv. 53, 36-38. Rom. viii. 10, 11. 



9^ THE FUTURE STATE. 

the temporal penalties for their sins, and through the 
pain of the ignis jmrgatorius sin in them is to be an- 
nihilated, so that the j may be able to enter upon 
blessedness. The Reformation rejected utterly the 
whole doctrine of purgatory, and discovered in it a 
perversion of the Gospel, nay, the seat of a multitude 
of the worst corruptions of the church. It expected 
the near end of the world, and was, therefore, all the 
less inclined to busy itself much about the condition 
of the soul between death and the resurrection. This 
remained, at first, its general presupposition : with the 
end of the earthly life is for all men the definitive 
decision given, without any intermediate state. Upon 
the other side there is only the opposition between 
heaven and hell ; Hades is identical with Gehenna. 
Yet degrees of happiness and of misery were sup- 
posed among the blessed and the lost, nay, with the 
resurrection and the judgment an enhancement also 
of the condition of both was supposed. According 
to some passages in Luther, 1 sin will only be utterly 
destroyed in us with the resurrection ; while others, 
as Gerhard 2 think that in the moment of death orig- 



1 Cat. Maj., p. 500: Spiritus S. citra intermissionem nobis sanc- 
tificandis opus suum perficit usque in extremum diem. Comp. 
500-59. 

2 This is also held by moderns, as Pdnck, Splittgerber, Philippi, 
vi. 8. Beholding God purines the soul at once. Philippi supposes, 
besides, a creative, miraculous act of God, which always coincides 
with the death of the believer. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 97 

inal sin is annihilated. 1 Many teachers of the ancient 
church, as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Jerome, suppose 
a complete identity of the resurrection-body with the 
earthly one, all the faults of the latter included, 
which Christ will remedy at his second coming. A 
more spiritual theory is maintained, especially by 
Origen with his school, who even regards the present 
body as an evil and a hindrance to perfection. But 
especially since Augustine's day a middle opinion be- 
tween the materialistic and the spiritualistic has pre- 
vailed, which also has passed over into the evangelical 
church. According to this view the resurrection-body 
has indeed an identity of substance with the earthly 
body, but not of form, for that rather will be a 
glorified body. 

III. — Dogmatic Exposition. 

Death and Resurrection in General. — Death, as the 
separation of the soul from the body, which falls a 
prey to corruption, is represented in the whole of 
Scripture as something that does not belong to the 
idea of man, but has interposed itself, as a disturbance 
of the godlike personality through sin, and in so far 
contrary to nature. 2 Hence as surely as redemption 
involves a restoration, nay, consummation of all good, 
through it the original bond of union between soul and 

1 Comp. above, sees. 87, 88. 2 Comp. above, 1 sees. 87, 88. 
7 



98 THE FUTURE STATE. 

body is restored ; nay, made more intimate, and it can- 
not remain indifferent to the rupture of this bond. 
Death is, indeed, to Christians, no more death in the 
ordinary sense ; it is no longer penal evil. The Chris- 
tian is free from the sting — the fear of death and 
Hades. Nay, to Christians death is no longer a mere 
suffering, but an entering into the divine will, thus an 
act ; hence the "form of death" is the only remnant of 
death. And yet it is in itself no good even for Chris- 
tians. 1 Fear of it vanishes for the Christian, in the 
main, only through the certainty that it is a transition, 
however painful and violent, to a metamorphosis, to a 
better life that can die no more. 2 This existence is 
therefore higher than that of man before the Fall. 
The Isew Testament is not contented with a bodiless 
immortality. It is opposed to a naked spiritualism, and 
accords completely with a deeper philosophy, which 
discerns in the body not merely the sheath or garment 
of the soul, but a side of the person belonging to his full 
idea, his mirror and organ, of the greatest importance 
for his activity and history. The human body too has 
its peculiar dignity, being raised even during earthly 
life by the Holy Spirit to a higher stage, into a temple 
of God. 3 But something still higher can come out of 
matter than has come out of it in the earthly body. 4 

1 2 Cor. v. 2-4: "I desire to be clothed upon, rather than un- 
clothed." 

2 John xi. 25, 26. 3 1 Cor. vi. 15, 19. 4 1 Cor. xv. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 99 

For even the body is to be renewed after the image 
of God, which is implied in the statement that it is 
to be made like Christ's glorified body. Therefore 
not only will death keep no prey, but the Sotja of the 
divine life is to shine forth from it. Here also the 
New Testament favors Realism, in such a form in- 
deed that stress is not laid on gross matter, but on 
the element of substantial reality, which will be in 
harmony with the spirit in its consummation. For 
this reason it speaks of a new world, a new heaven 
and new earth, and finds the triumph of restorative 
redemption only in the pneumatic body of the resur- 
rection, which both vanquishes everything deadly, 
and also glorifies earthly matter. But in the New 
Testament the resurrection is mentioned only in con- 
nection with Christ's second advent. And thus, 
before we enter more closely into the dogmatic doc- 
trine of the resurrection, the question cannot be 
avoided, How is the intermediate period up to the 
second advent to be viewed in relation to the departed ? 
2. There is an intermediate state before the de- 
cision by the judgment. The Reformation, occupied 
chiefiy with opposition to the Romish purgatory, 
leaped over, as it were, the intermediate state, i.e., left 
at rest the questions presenting themselves here, and 
gazed with unblenched eye only at the contrast be- 
tween the saved and damned, retaining without fur- 
ther inquiry (in opposition to earlier teachers), the 



100 THE FUTURE STATE. 

view that every one's eternal lot is finally decided with 
his departure from the present life. This is in keep- 
ing with the high estimation pnt on the moral worth of 
the earthly life. Nevertheless this view is impracti- 
cable, and that even on moral grounds. Not only 
would nothing of essential importance remain for the 
judgment, if every one entered the place of his eternal 
destiny directly after death ; but in that case, also, no 
room would be left for a progress of believers, who, 
however, are not yet sinless at the moment of death. 
If they are conceived as holy directly after death, 
sanctification would be effected by the separation from 
the body ; the seat, therefore, of evil must be found in 
the body, and sanctification would be realized through 
a mere suffering, namely, of death in a physical pro- 
cess, instead of through the will. 1 Moreover, the 

1 To suppose, with Delitzsch, that after the body is laid aside, 
the sancti ying power of faith will spontaneously burst forth, and 
the sight of the reality of what is believed will suddenly wipe out 
all sin, is to reduce the matter to a mere physical process. Philippi 
sees that all solutions of this nature proceed on the supposition 
that sin has not its seat in the spirit and therefore requires a di- 
vine creative act in behalf of every one dying in faith. But he 
cannot quote Holy Scripture in favor of such a view. It would 
imply an abridging of the ethical sphere and its laws, a violation 
of the fundamental law obtaining in the relation between divine 
and human agency, namely, that God's act initiates action. 
Hence Kahnis and Martensen rightly hold a continuance of the 
ethical process in the next world (Martensen, sec. 276 ; Kahnis, 
iii , 554, 576). 



THE FUTURE STATE. IOI 

absoluteness of Christianity demands that no one be 
judged before Christianity has been made accessible 
and brought near to him. But that is not the case 
in this life with millions of human beings. JSTay, even 
within the church there are periods and circles where 
the Gospel does not really approach men as that which 
it is. Moreover, those dying in childhood have not 
been able to decide personally for Christianity. Nor 
is the former view tenable exegetically. As to the 
Old Testament, it does not teach that all men enter 
directly after death into blessedness or damnation. 
They rather enter Sheol, which is described as an 
abode of the departed who are without power and 
true life. 1 The pious and godless are not thought of 
as separated therein. This agrees with the statement 
that Christ first prepared the place of blessedness, to 
which belonged his person and work. 2 

Further, we may apply here what was said above re- 
specting the descent into Hades 3 which implies that a 
salvation through knowledge of the Gospel is possi- 
ble also to the departed. Christian grace is designed 

_ t 

J See Appendix. Job xxxviii. 17. Gen. xxxvii. 35 ; xlii. 38; 
xliv. 29, 31. Num. xvi. 30-33. Ps. xvi. 9, -10 ; xviii. 5 ; xlix. 
14 ff.; lxxxviii. 11 ; lxxxix. 48. 

2 John xiv. 3. 

3 Sec. 124. This section is of so much importance, especially 
from an exegetical point of view, that I have added it in an ap- 
pendix. — Tr. 



102 THE FUTURE STATE. 

for human beings, not for inhabitants of earth. 1 It 
is not said : He that hears not shall be damned ; but 
he that believes not. 2 Jesus seeks the lost : lost may 
be sought also in the kingdom of the dead. The oppo- 
site view leads to an absolute decree of rejection for 
all who have died and die as heathen, whereas Chris- 
tian grace is universal. A proof that, according to the 
New Testament, the time of grace does not by a uni- 
versal law expire with death, is found in Christ's rais- 
ings of the dead, e.g., the youth at Nain received by be- 
ing raised from the dead a prolonged term of grace, 
through which Christ's love became first known to 
him. 3 And if Tyre and Sidon had seen what the Jews 

1 1 Tim. ii. 4-6. Luke xix. 10. 1 John ii. 2. 

2 Mark xvi. 16. 

3 Luke vii. 11-15. [Dorner's main argument is that the final 
determination of character, which is an ethical process, cannot be 
dependent upon any physical process like the change of death. 
But to this a New England theologian might reply : Death may 
be by a divine appointment, or law of God's government, the end 
for man of his period of grace. This cannot necessarily be, Bor- 
ner intimates above, because no such law of God's government 
holds true of certain cases in the New Testament. This thought 
is worthy of serious consideration. It may be further developed 
as follows : If it is a law of God's government that judgment fol- 
lows death ; then, in the case of Lazarus, after which death, the 
first or the second, was the judgment appointed for him ? If the 
law held good immediately after he died the first time, then his 
intermediate life between his two deaths must have escaped alto- 
gether the judgment for the deeds done in the body. Thus, in 
our undeveloped theology upon this subject, the whole interme- 



THE FUTURE STATE. 103 

saw, and had repented in sackcloth and ashes, 1 they 
would have been saved ; which therefore involves that 
if the term of grace expired for them with death, they 
would be damned, because, through no fault of their 
own, they had not seen and experienced Christ. When, 
further, Christ says of one sin a that it is forgiven 
neither in this nor the next life, whereas other sins 
find forgiveness without restriction to this life, there 
is involved a testimony that other sins aside from the 
sin against the Holy Ghost may yet be forgiven in 
the next world. And how can the place of itself be 
expected to settle the question of moral worth and 
capacity for redemption ? When the Epistle to the 

1 Matt. xi. 21-24. 2 Matt. xii. 32. 

diate life is virtually regarded as a side-piece of the soul's exist- 
ence, of which, no account seems to be taken in the judgment for 
the deeds done only in the body— as the text is generally read 
with the addition of the word only to the Scripture. That would 
be morally possible, however, only upon the supposition that the 
intermediate state is a sleep of the soul. Otherwise there would 
be continued activities, and developments both of sin and of holi- 
ness, which would be ignored in the final judgment of an Omnis- 
cient God, which is ethically inconceivable. 

Let us examine, then, the other side of the alternative. The 
probation of Lazarus, we will suppose, was not closed, under a di- 
vine law, by death ; but continued until he died a second time. 
Upon this supposition his judgment after his second death must 
be either an instance of the general law of the last judgment, and 
in harmony with the relation that death has to God's government ; 
or else it must have been a miraculous exception. But if an ex- 
ception, it would be an exception not to a physical law, but to a 



104 THE FUTURE STATE. 

Hebrews says : "It is appointed to man once to die, 
and after this there awaits him Kplo-is" ' we are not to 
understand with the old theology that the eternal sal- 
vation or woe of every one is decided immediately 
after death. As to the time of the final judgment, 
after death, the passage says nothing. Moreover, 
not only is the last judgment a crisis, 2 but death also 

moral law. It would Tbe an instance where the general moral 
principle of the judgment, which is conceived to be necessarily, 
or by divine decree, connected with death, does not obtain. It 
would be an ethical exception, a miracle in the sphere of the 
moral appointments of God's government. But to suppose a mi- 
racle in the sphere of moral law would be in the last degree con- 
fusing, and destructive of all faith. The distinguishing mark of 
Jesus' miracles was their conformity to moral laws. The suppo- 
sition of a miraculous exception in the sphere of moral principles 
— an ethical miracle — would not confirm faith, but shake the 
whole foundation of belief in truth and God. An ethical miracle, 
in short, is ethically inconceivable, for it is not only contrary to 
experience, but contrary to conscience. 

Our conception, therefore, of death, and its relations to the last 
judgment, must be comprehensive enough to include these bibli- 
cal facts. No doctrine of theology can be regarded as complete 
and satisfactory until it does bring under one comprehensive ethi- 
cal principle all the known facts and elements of belief contained 
in the Scriptures and in faith — Tr.] 

1 Reb ix. 27. It is not called tj Kpiais. 

2 The last judgment usually has the definite article. [I notice 
the statement in a recent lecture that any one who has looked 
into Dorner knows that he makes probation continue up to the 
day of judgment. It is possible that one who has only looked 
into Dorner may thus miss his main thought ; but any one who 



THE FUTURE STATE. 105 

brings one in its own way. Of course the importance 
of the bodily life and the account to be given of it are 
taught in the New Testament. The passages quoted 
above, according to which the pious enter at once a 
better place, exclude a purgatory as a state of punish- 
ment or penance, but by no means exclude a growth 
in perfection and blessedness. Even the departed 
righteous are not entirely perfected before the resurrec- 
tion, but their souls must still long for the dominion of 
Christ and the consummation of the kingdom of God. 1 
Thus there is yet a status intermedins even for be- 
lievers, and not an immediate passage into perfect 
blessedness, whereby the value of the resurrection 
would be lost, which occurs only along with Christ's 
second advent. 

3. And now how is this intermediate state to 
be conceived ? Before the resurrection all departed 
souls are in a bodiless, unclothed state, 2 at least with- 
out the resurrection body, as without the earthly ; 
and so far they are all in a state not completely an- 
swering to the idea of man, to which also belongs 

has studied Dorner knows that he does not use the terms judg- 
ment and the day of judgment as identical terms. The judgment, 
or crisis, is for every one the definitive sin of unbelief ; the end 
of probation is ethical self-determination against God in Christ. 
The end of the present world-period of grace is the last judgment. 
All men shall have become ripe for judgment at the coming of the 
day of judgment. — Tr.] 

1 Heb. xii. 22-24. Rev. vi. 9-11. 2 Comp. 2 Cor. v. 2 ff. 



106 THE FUTURE STATE. 

corporeity. But they are not, therefore, all in the 
same state or realm — a view which must follow from 
the theory of a sleep of the soul. As for the pious, in- 
tercourse with the ungodJy, to which they were sub- 
ject on earth, ceases after death ; they suffer nothing 
more from them, not even temptation. 1 The connec- 
tion of believers with Christ is so intimate that death 
and Hades have no power over it. 2 On the contrary, 
death brings them an increase of freedom from temp- 
tations and disturbances, as well as of blessedness. 
For believers there is no more punishment, but there 
is growth, a further laying aside of defects, an in- 
vigoration through the greater nearness of the Lord 
which they may experience, and through the more 
lively hope of their consummation. But those not 
as yet believers, so far as they are not incorrigible, 
remain at first under training which aims at decision 
for Christ. 3 But here a difficulty arises. The neces- 
sity of the resurrection is grounded in an essential, not 
accidental, relation of corporeity to the person, who, 
without body, cannot be conceived as self-conscious, 
and externally active. But in that case a corporeity 
seems necessarily demanded for the intermediate 
state, unless the souls of the pious are to be placed 
in an inferior state, or to fall into soul-sleep. But, 
on the other hand, to assume a spiritual bod}^ for the 
soul directly after death seems a forestalling of the 

1 Luke xvi. 26. 2 Rom. viii. 35-39. 3 1 Pet. iv. 6. 



THE FUTURE STATE. I0y 

resurrection. And no less to conceive of man after 
death without corporeity, and yet in higher blessed- 
ness, would leave it obscure how far the resurrection 
is a necessity to him. We must refrain from laying 
down anything definite on this point. Most probable 
seems the conjecture, that, with this, at all events, 
relatively bodiless state, a still life begins, a sinking 
of the soul within itself and into the ground of its 
life — what Steffens calls Involution, and Martensen 
Self -brooding. 1 The life there is predominantly a life 
in spirituality. The essential, substantial union of 
the soul with Christ continues, nay, is more un- 
troubled and constant. Through God they are able 
to know about the world, and learn then to view 
everything in connection with Christ. In this life 
the realities of the sensuous world are the objects of 
sight, the spiritual world is the object of faith. 
Then, when the physical side is wanting to the 
spirit, these poles will be reversed. 2 To the de- 
parted spirits the spiritual world whether in good or 
evil, 3 will appear to be the real existence resting on 

1 Martensen, sec 275 ff. 

2 Comp. Kern : Tub. Zeitschrift Die Christliche Eschatologie, 
1840. 

a Which does not imply that all the departed do, or can, imme- 
diately after death, behold everything spiritual, e.g., God. If 
they had at once perfect knowledge, it would he inconsistent 
with the fact that even in the next world a free process has its 
place, which is not predetermined by a perfect knowledge. 



108 THE FUTURE STATE. 

immediate evidence. Since, then, such internal soul- 
life unveils the ground of the soul more openly, the 
retiring into self has for believers the effect of puri- 
fying and educating. It serves to obliterate all 
stains, to harmonize the whole inner being, in keep- 
ing with the good disposition brought over from the 
other life or later acquired ; thus there will be for 
them no idle waiting for the judgment but a pro- 
gressing in knowledge, blessedness, and holiness, in 
communion witli Christ and the heavenly company. 
But in regard to those who died unbelieving, or not 
yet believing, to them also the ground of their souls 
is laid bare ; hence also their impurity, their discord, 
and alienation from God, is unveiled. This must be- 
come conscious discord in themselves. If they were 
subject to evil inclinations and passions, they will busy 
themselves with the corresponding objects of desire, 
and yet have their longing unappeased, and will be 
given over in a sense to their thoughts and desires as 
tormentors. If, instead of repenting and being con- 
verted, instead of growing in self-knowledge and 
knowledge of God as holy, and yet gracious in Christ, 
they prefer to continue in evil ; then the form of their 
sin becomes more spiritual, more demoniacal, in ac- 
cordance with their state from which this world recedes 
farther and farther, and thus it ripens for the judg- 
ment. But in nowise will the divine government be 
to blame for this result. The Gospel will be deci- 



THE FUTURE STATE. 109 

sively presented to all who had not come to a final de- 
cision in this life, and all who do not shut themselves 
against it will be saved. If, then, in this life the sen- 
suous alone was the object of sight, and in so far the 
bodily life preponderated ; if, again, in the interme- 
diate state the spiritual, whether in good or evil, pre- 
ponderated, and in both cases, therefore, the equilib- 
rium and blessed interpenetration of both sides was 
wanting, although there is a progression of believers 
in the intermediate state; the resurrection, on the 
other hand, consummates the personality of believers. 
Even their appearance becomes spiritual, pneumatic, 
and the spiritual becomes apparent, so that it is no 
longer possible to say which of the two is actual, since 
rather both sides interpenetrate perfectly and indis- 
solubly. 1 

Observation. — Certainly the possibility is conceiv- 
able, that in the intermediate state .the soul has the 
power, at least in reference to particular acts, to ap- 
propriate to itself elements out of nature for pur- 
poses of self -revelation, but the forming of a per- 
manent new body and its indissoluble union with 
the soul are reserved, according to the Kew Tes- 
tament, for the resurrection. 2 

1 Comp. Kern, ut supra. 

2 The passage, 2 Cor. v. 3, efye — ov yvfxvoi evpfOyjcTofieGa. says : We 
long to be clothed upon with the heavenly body (verses 1, £), 
although aTter putting of the earthly body (iKSvirdfxevoi) we shall not 
be found naked. If we may so read and understand the passage 



1 10 THE FUTURE STATE. 

4. The nature of the physical consummation, or of 
the resurrection-body, its absolute identity in matter 
and form with the earthly frame, is not included in 
the idea of the restoration of the entire person to 
corporeity. Even the seed-corn, which dies, does not 
all rise again in the wheat. Certain parts succumb 
to the elements, and enter new combinations, other 
new parts are assimilated. Even our body changes 
its material substance during its life, as Origen early 
perceived. Without prejudice to its identity, it un- 
dergoes daily change of substance. The identity will 
rather refer, first, to the plastic form, which for the 
earthly body had its moulding principle in the soul. 
That principle could effect nothing permanent in the 
intermediate state, but with the spiritual consumma- 
tion of the soul it attains the full power which can 

(which certainly is disputed), then some sort of an intermediate 
corporeity, having secondary importance in comparison with the 
divinely given resurrection-body, may be thought of. For, with. 
Philippi (vi. , p. 35) after Calvin, to refer the covering of the naked- 
ness to the garment of Christ's righteousness is out of place, be- 
cause the context requires, not a moral, but physical covering. 
For the rest, Holy Scripture says nothing of a body which is the 
product of the ethical process in this life, or the germ of the resur- 
rection-body. This theory may easily lead to the notion that 
only the regenerate rise again. Were we to say, with Rothe, that 
even the abnormal moral process produces such a body, at least 
those who die in childhood, in whose case there can be no ques- 
tion of a moral process, have not acquired such a body. 



THE FUTURE STATE III 

appropriate to itself the heavenly body. For the 
building of an immortal body there is needed a power 
other than that possessed by the soul immediately 
after death, likewise a constitution of the elements 
different from the earthly. According to Holy Scrip- 
ture the resurrection is accompanied by vast cosmical 
processes, with a transformation of the world 1 which 
will be God's work. As to form, the resurrection- 
body will correspond to the fact that man was created 
for Christ, and therefore in his consummation will be- 
come like the image of him who is our elder-born 
brother. 2 

Secondly. — As concerns matter, the elements, into 
which everything bodily of earth is dissolved, are an 
essentially uniform mass, like an ocean, and it is in- 
different what parts of this are assigned to each indi- 



1 Rom. viii. 18 ff. 2 Pet. iii. 10. Rev. xx. 11 ff. Then, to use 
Rotlie's expression, chemistry will through God celebrate its 
triumphs. [This remark is worthy of special notice as indicative 
of one of the most significant tendencies of modern theology ; that 
is, to contemplate Christianity — all its facts and doctrines— so far 
as we may, in their relation to the cosmos — to the universe at large, 
considered as one system or orderly development of the divine 
wisdom and love. Thus, the Incarnation is conceived as having 
universal significance for the creati ;n. This conception is needed 
in New England to correct and to complete the individualism, not 
to say atomism, of prevalent theological modes. Without it, the 
doctrine of the last judgment becomes practically lost, and the 
necessity for the resurrection fades from view. — Tr.] 

2 Phil. iii. 21. 1 John iii. 2. Comp. p. 90. 



112 THE FUTURE STATE. 

vidual man. The whole world of substance which 
makes the constant change of substance possible, is 
made over to humanity as a common possession. 
Thus, it may be said, not indeed of the individual, 
but of humanity, that it will appropriate or put on, 
in glorified form, out of the same world of elements 
which served it in the present life, that which cor- 
responds to its resurrection-life, because the perish- 
ableness of matter will be abolished by its glorification. 
Being appropriated by spirit that has reached its 
permanent state, it, too, will share in this permanence. 

Observation. — The passage, John v. 29, speaks 
not only of a resurrection of life in a glorified 
body of light, but also expressly of a resurrection of 
condemnation. If, then, we are also to suppose 
somehow an equalizing of the internal and exter- 
nal in relation to the wicked, yet the New Testa- 
ment gives no more definite information on this 
point, but speaks almost exclusively of the resur- 
rection of the just. The other is not so much a 
matter of theological knowledge as of curiosity. 



third part. the last judgment and the end of 

the world. 

Sec. 154. 

There is a final judgment by the returning Lord, 
of which the negative side is the exclusion of all evil 
from the kingdom of Christ and its blessedness ; the 



THE FUTURE STATE. 1 13 

positive, the revelation of the full power of redemp- 
tion through the consummation of the individual and 
of the world. 

1. All judgments in and through the history of 
the world are only partial ; but they are, besides, am- 
biguous, and not finally decisive of anything. If this 
alternate victory and defeat of the good continued 
forever, not only would the subjective aesthetic and 
religious feeling be wronged, but the ultimate goal 
would totter. The result would be a Dualism which 
would set up good and evil as equal in might and 
worth, threatening thus to co-ordinate the two, which 
is not compatible with the teleological character of 
Christianity and the decisive significance of Christ's 
person. Christianity cannot always remain a mere 
historic principle alongside the absolutely contrary 
principle, and share the power with it as though both 
had equal right. The kingdom of God must outlive 
all, must show up everything hostile as altogether 
worthless, or as hollow, untrue, and powerless. We 
are driven to demand this not only by an aesthetic 
interest, which, even of itself, requires a harmonious 
close of the world-drama ; but by a religious and 
moral interest in keeping w T ith the connection obtain- 
ing between the moral and the physical, i.e., the might. 
Christianity claims to be the reality of realities, alone 
possessed of true eternal power. But what it is in it- 
self, or internally, this it must also reveal. As spirit- 



114 THE FUTURE STATE. 

ual it cannot remain a mere quiescent power. It is 
the inmost ground- thought of the world, so that 
without its victory the design of the world would be 
unattained. 

2. Hence the New Testament teaches a last judg- 
ment, and through it a avvreXeca rod alwvos, an end 
of the course of this world ; which is not annihilation 
of the world, 1 but a reaching of its final goal. 2 The 
descriptions of the final judgment contain figurative 
elements. 3 But this is simply the form of the 
thought, that at the end of the present world-course 
the moment arrives when, by divine intervention, a 
permanent division is effected, when the powers hos- 
tile to the kingdom of God are stripped of their 
usurped might, revealed in their falsehood and im- 
potence, and consigned to the past ; when evil is 
utterly cut off, given over to its nothingness or made 
a harmless subordinate element. God executes the 
judgment through Christ. The absolute revelation 
must also be that which judges. The Son of man 

1 The older theologians, from Gerhard to Hollary, would find an 
abolitio substantias et formce mundi in Matt. xxiv. 35, Heb. i. 11, 
Rev. xx. 11. But other passages oppose this, as 1 Cor. vii. 31 
[tWx^mo tov k6ct}xov — napd-yei] ; Rom. viii. 19, 21. Nor does it 
agree with the fact that the substance of the world is good and 
plastic Comp. Philippi vi. 143-148. 

2 The <rvvTe\eia aluvos is called ^epjCjuos, Matt. xiii. 39, 40 ff., 
49 ; xxiv. 3. 

3 E.g., Matt. xxv. 31 ff. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 1 15 

is, as the truth of humanity, also its absolute norm, 
and the standard according to which righteous judg- 
ment is passed on men. 1 Hence, whoever continues 
in opposition to him is self-condemned. 2 There can 
be no doubt, from the New Testament, that every 
one whom the judgment finds disbelieving will be 
condemned to punishment and pain, while believers 
enter into eternal life. But whether many or few, in 
proportion to the total number of men, will be 
brought by this judgment into perfect blessedness, 
and whether many or few are subjected to punish- 
ment ; on this we have no certain disclosure. When 
Christ was questioned about it, 3 he treated the ques- 
tion as one which we are not to entertain, but should 
ask instead whether we have done our part to enter 
by the narrow way. It is thus designated as a pre- 
mature question of curiosity. But another question 
is, whether, if any have fallen under a condemnatory 
judgment, they will be eternally damned. In regard 
to this we have a twofold series of Scripture pas- 
sages. 

On the one hand, it is said, 4 the sin against the 
Holy Ghost will not be forgiven even in the next 

1 John v. 27. 

2 John iii. 19. In the same sense believers too are to be co- 
judges (1 Cor. vi. 2, Luke xxii. 30) in proportion as they are like 
the Son of man. 

3 Luke xiii. 23. 4 Matt. xii. 32. 



Il6 THE FUTURE STATE. 

world, which seems to imply that if committed by 
any one, it deprives of blessedness forever, and brings 
in its train either destruction and annihilation, or 
eternal damnation. For the sin against the Holy 
Ghost is final unbelief, which absolutely demands 
punishment, and for which no further sacrifice exists 
and no intercession must be made. 1 The unsaved 
fall a prey to unquenchable eternal fire, to the worm 
which dies not. 2 According to Revelation, the smoke 
of the torment of those cast into the burning lake 
ascends from seons to seons. 3 But the strongest pas- 
sage on this side is the saying respecting the betrayer : 
" It were better for that man if he had never been 
born." 4 

On the other hand, there is undeniably much that 
is figurative in passages of this kind, and thus the 
question arises, how far the interpretation should be 
literal. Again, a destruction of death and Hades is 
spoken of. 5 Paul calls death the last foe who is over- 
come, therefore sin has been overcome before. Since, 
further, with him death denotes also spiritual death, 

1 Heb. vi. 4 ; x. 26, 27. 1 John v. 16. John xvii. 9. 

2 Mark ix. 42-48. Matt, xviii. 8 ; xxv. 41-46 ; iii. 10 ; vii. 19. 

3 Eev. xix. 3 ; xiv. 11 ; xx. 10. 

4 Matt. xxvi. 24. The supposition of an annihilation by pun- 
ishment would be more compatible with this passage than that of 
universal restoration. 

5 Hos. xiii. 14. Isa. xxv. 8. 1 Cor. xv. 26 ; comp. vers. 54, 55. 
Rev. xx. 14. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 117 

the cause of which is sin, it seems as if the destruc- 
tion of death implied the ceasing of sin, either 
through conversion of the wicked or through their 
destruction. Revelation makes death and Hades, 
nay, even the devil, to be cast into the burning lake, 1 
which denotes the second death. The meaning of 
the " second death " has in any case something mys- 
terious about it. If the first death is the dissolution 
of the body, the second might signify a dissolution of 
the soul, or at least the hardening and dying of the 
soul to divine things through entire separation from 
the holy God, and therefore a state of spiritual ruin. 
Further, the passages concerning the sin against the 
Holy Ghost say nothing of definite persons who have 
committed this sin. Of themselves, therefore, they 
leave the question unanswered, what men, and 
whether any men, reach this final goal of depravity, 
which is set before the eyes as a warning. Just so 
the revelation of John does not say who, or that any 
man, will be cast into the lake of fire ; the hypotheti- 
cal form is rather chosen : " If one is not written in 
the book of life," " if one worships the beast, 2 he shall 
drink the cup of wrath," — all which affirms nothing 
of persons, but of the principle. Moreover, in the 
strongest passages the word alcov, alujvios is often 
used, which, in the nature of the case, in reference 

1 Rev. xx. 14 ; comp. ver. 10. 

2 Rev. xx. 15 ; xiv. 9, e? rts. 



Il8 THE FUTURE STATE. 

to the blessedness or eternal life of believers, signi- 
fies eternal duration, but by no means denotes every- 
where an endless period, for an end of the seons is 
spoken of. JEons and aeons of seons also often denote 
the world- age. 1 Were this meaning to be assumed in 
reference to the punishments, the result would be in- 
deed a duration of immeasurable length, but not an 
eternity of duration, a view which may be that fa- 
vored also by the passage which makes the punish- 
ment endure until the last farthing is paid. 2 

Here belong several other passages which laud the 
universality of grace and its all embracing power. 3 
Paul looks forward to a time when everything shall 
be subject to the Son, that God may be all in all. 4 
According to him Christ reconciles everything to 

1 Heb. ix. 26. Comp. Burnet, ut supra, p. 318 ff. Circumcision 
is to be an eternal usage, Gen. xvii. 13 ; Canaan an eternal pos- 
session or Israel, Gen. xiii. 15 ; xlviii. 4. The Mosaic laws in ref- 
erence to the Passover, and many commands of a transient nature, 
are called an ordinance for eternity ifcViyV), e.g , Ex. xii. 14; 
xxvii. 21 ; xxviii. 43. Lev. x. 15 ; xvi. 34. Num. xviii. 11. The 
temple at Jerusalem is to be God's dwelling forever, 2 Chron. 
vi. 2. Just so the kingdom of David is to be forever, 2 Sam. 
vii. 13. A slave, who spontaneously binds himself by a symboli- 
cal act to his lord, is said, according to Ex. xxi. 6, to serve him 
forever. That aiuv corresponds to tV'y is shown by the Septua- 
gint and the New Testament. 

2 Matt. v. 26. Penal sufferings may be requisite to deliverance. 

3 Rom. v. 18 ; xi. 26, 32. Eph. i. 10. Col. i. 16, 20. 
4 1 Cor. xv. 25-28. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 119 

himself, whether on earth or in heaven. He makes all 
things to be gathered together in Christ, both that 
which is in heaven and on earth. 1 And if also, accord- 
ing to the principal passage respecting the sin against 
the Holy Ghost, there is no forgiveness for it ; 2 there 
is involved in this, indeed, the necessity of punish- 
ment for those guilty of that sin. But that does not 
necessarily exclude deliverance through punishment 
and its just execution. 3 

3. On the ground of the second series of state- 
ments, the doctrine of universal restoration (airoKa- 
TacrTa<TL<$ irdvTcov) has again and again found its 
friends, from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, John 
Scotus Erigena, down to Petersen (about 1700), 
Michael Hahn, Oetinger, also, from some hints, Ben- 
gel, but especially Schleiermacher ; while others, in- 
stead of a universal conversion suppose, although by 
a process of long-continued punishments, the annihi- 
lation of the wicked, either through punishment or 
because the regenerate alone are immortal. Paul as- 
sumes, to be sure, in the passages quoted, that no hos- 
tile power, thus neither death nor sin, will assert 
itself against Christ ; but these passages affirm with 
certainty only the final impotence of the wicked, and 
even the saying that God will be all in all, which is 



1 Col. i. 20. Eph. i. 10. Comp. John x. 16. 

2 Matt. xii. 31 ff. 3 Matt. v. 26. 



120 THE FUTURE STATE. 

not to be understood pantheistically, does not neces- 
sarily assert universal salvation and glorification, but 
may imply that God will be the controlling power in 
all, according to the character of each — either as just 
toward the wicked, who will have lost their freedom, 
or as gracious. In any case, they can bnt serve the 
kingdom of God, not assert any power against it. 
On the other hand, it is to be conceded that there is 
no dogmatic interest in demanding that some are 
of a certainty eternally damned and lost. For that 
would imply not only that the possibility of eternal 
sin is contained in the ethical world-idea of God ; but 
that a real, eternal dualism belongs to the Christian 
world-goal ; which is to be rejected. But the friends 
of apokatastasis are not satisfied with this, and main- 
tain even the dojmatic necessity of their view. 

4. Criticism of the dogmatic reasons for a res- 
toration of all things. 

Firstly. — The equality of human sin and need of 
redemption may be alleged in favor of this view. 
" If all men are by nature involved in essentially the 
same sinfulness, from which redemption alone can 
deliver, then, if all are not delivered, the reason 
would be that Christian grace did not operate in all 
with equal success. But since it is meant to apply 
equally to all, such a contrary result could not have 
its ground in God ; and likewise, if all are not re- 
deemed, sin could not be by nature an equal power in 



THE FUTURE STATE. 121 

all ; rather in some it would be conquerable by God, 
in others unconquerable, which is against the hypoth- 
esis." But this argument loses its weight if the final 
destiny is, as by us, made dependent not on natural 
sinfulness, but on the use of freedom, which has 
been restored in all, in deciding for or against Christ. 
In the universal call, external and internal, is given 
universal possibility of faith ; but to produce by 
God's power impossibility of disbelief would directly 
contradict the ethical character of the world-goal. 

"The divine justice," it may be further urged, "is 
not satisfied if a number of men eternally suffer pun- 
ishment against their will ; its full triumph is secured 
only when the sinner's own consciousness of guilt is 
constrained to acknowledge the justice of the punish- 
ment, and this of itself paves the way for a turning 
to the truth and to amendment." Still, justice does 
not become more just by being acknowledged, and 
non-acknowledgment ought not to hinder its revela- 
tion, but makes it all the more necessary. We have 
no right to say that punishment is just only if it is 
the means of amendment. Justice of itself does not 
need the happiness or improvement of all. 1 — Uni- 
versal salvation might rather be deduced from divine 
love. But love maintains its sacred, inviolable char- 
acter, in that justice guards it against despite. Love 

1 Above, sec. 88, p. 229. 



122 THE FUTURE STATE. 

may not throw itself away. Those who despise the 
love of Christ, who desecrate his sacrifice, cannot with 
such conduct be the objects of divine love. That 
cannot force itself on any one and undervalue its own 
work. If the despisers of Christ's love could be 
well-pleasing to God, love would declare its own work 
superfluous. For those who have committed the sin 
against the Holy Ghost (and only such, as must be 
conceded, can be objects of eternal damnation) there 
can be in God no love, because, and in so far as, they 
have identified themselves indissolubly with evil. 
But are not the redeeming power and victory of 
Christ incomplete, if enemies exist forever who are 
only externally, not internally, vanquished, i.e., who 
are only powerless, but still of evil disposition? 
" Christ's redemptive purpose indisputably embraces 
all ; thus his wish also would be unfulfilled unless all 
became partakers of salvation." Christ's intercession 
cannot imply the imparting of redemption to those 
who would not accept it by their own free decision. 
The Gospel can subdue only by spiritual means. If 
the free will decides to reject the Gospel, Christ 
cannot hinder it, or desire to supersede the spiritual 
process by mere power. 1 

1 It is more difficult to reTute the objection, how it consists with 
the love oi God, who eternally foresees also free actions, to create 
those, of whom he knows beforehand that they are created for 
eternal damnation. But whether the divine foreknowledge should 



THE FUTURE STATE. 1 23 

But if, starting from the idea of the church, we 
say as follows : " None can be wanting to it in the 
consummation, who belong to its idea ; but according 
to the New Testament everything is created for 
Christ, therefore all belong to the divine idea of the 
church, and thus a universal apokatastasis is required 
from its standpoint ; or, granting that some one had 
never belonged to the idea of the church at all, he 
would not be regarded even by God as belonging to our 
class of beings, but to another, and this would be Man- 
ichsean ; "—the answer is contained in what precedes. 
God's unexhausted, undiminished creative power and 
wisdom will know how to provide in the progress of 
the generations against the possibility that the idea of 
the church and the kingdom of God will remain un- 
realized, either by means of new individuals or by 
giving to the faithful the talent of the unfaithful for 
the work. Power, therefore, is not conferred on sin to 
frustrate the thought of the consummation of the 
kingdom. That unbelievers are not by nature essen- 
tially different from believers, that they did not be- 
long originally to another class of beings having no 



be so viewed that it could become a motive for non-creation, is 
more than questionable. The foreknowledge of final unbelief 
presupposes the creation of those who become unbelieving. Comp. 
vol. ii., p. 61, and M'Cabe, The Foreknowledge of God, 187S. But 
the question remains: Is conservation for eternal torment con- 
ceivable ? 



124 THE FUTURE STATE. 

reference to Christ, is evident from the fact that final 
unbelief is possible in their case only through an 
abuse of freedom, which they might have avoided. 
The Gospel had a positive relation to them also, but 
by their abuse of freedom they made this relation a 
negative one. Even believers are not saved by a 
particular predestination, but they did not abuse the 
freedom which the others also had ; not that this is a 
merit in them, but it furnished to grace the possibil- 
ity of influence and self-communication. 1 

Observation. — But of course it must be conceded 
that the human race is a genus of beings, the mem- 
bers of which are able through their freedom to 
fall apart into opposite poles, which are of abso- 
lute significance, deeper than any antithesis possible 
among the different genera of beings in nature. 
But such depth of separation is possible only on the 
basis of freedom and original equality. Freedom 
is the power to sunder spirits into the absolute con- 
trast of children of light and children of darkness, 
and to convert the latter into a class of beings 
which is, of course, absolutely opposed to the other. 
But God did not create men on a dualistic basis. 

But do not the certitude and power of baptism 
suffer unless all are saved? In baptism surely God 
confers on man election and his faithful covenant, 
which does not apply merely to the moment. If, 
then, a baptized one is lost, the certainty of the 
election testified by baptism is gone. But certain as 
it is that election to the offer of grace by outward 

1 Sec. 151, p. 410. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 12$ 

and inward calling is universal and absolute, still 
the election to life embraces only believers and the 
regenerate, and withal has regard to the use of 
freedom. 

Most of all it may seem established that the hap- 
piness of believers must necessarily be disturbed by 
the misery of the one class, especially since the for- 
mer have the consciousness of not being better or 
more worthy, but, on the contrary, of even having 
contributed to the sin of others by joint responsi- 
bility. Thus a sting seems necessarily left in the 
happiness of the good, unless all are saved. In 
reply to this it might indeed be said : If the dam- 
nation of some is God's holy and righteous will, a 
resignation is fitting, in which no other wish is 
felt than one in harmony with God's will, whose 
love surely is not surpassed by our loving sympa- 
thy. — But this answer is insufficient, because mere 
[i.e., passive, Tr.] resignation would not comport 
with the perfecting of personality. On the other 
hand, in respect to. the sting lying in the conscious- 
ness of joint authorship of sin, it must be consid- 
ered that the sin which leads to damnation can 
never be the sin resulting from innate sinfulness 
alone, or at all from the influence of the race, the 
common spirit, example, or temptation by error. 
Rather the sin rendering the individual absolutely 
bad can only be the personal guilt of rejecting 
Christ, in which, of course, rejection of good itself 
is- included, and therefore acquiescence in all other 
possible sin. And if further it is remembered that 
only blasphemy against the Holy Ghost can be the 
final ground of damnation, and therefore the sin 
that tramples under foot the blood of the new cov- 
enant and counts it unholy ; sympathy with such 
sinners must be. essentially different from natural 



126 THE FUTURE STATE. 

sympathy with members of the race ; for they of 
course belong to an absolutely different class of be- 
ings, for whom even intercession can no longer be 
made, because it is ethically as well as logically im- 
possible to desire forgiveness for those who despise 
it. Provision must, indeed, be made somehow, so 
that the dualism of powers hostile to God be not 
perpetuated, instead, of the consummation of our 
sphere of creation. 

5. Clear as is the utterance of the Xew Testament 
on the principle that unbelief damns, not at all clear is 
its answer to the question what persons are judged and 
treated on that principle. 1 That some are damned 

[} In an article upon Dorner's theology in the Bibliotheca Sacra 
for October, 1882, this statement of Dorner's views is given : "Thus 
in regard to the endless duration of future punishment, he con- 
cedes that the Scriptural evidence in the affirmative preponderates," 
etc. A comparison with the text above will be sufficient to show 
that this is not what Corner has said. In order to prevent misap- 
prehension of his exact point Dorner took pains to use italics, and 
to emphasize the fact that he is here considering whether any per- 
sons will be finally condemned. Theological inferences from an 
author's words should not be regarded as necessarily his views. I 
may notice here, as another instance of the danger of interpret- 
ing a profound thinker by hasty inferences from particular 
sentences, the mistake into which the same critic falls in his con- 
clusion that Dorner's view of forensic' justification involves the 
absurdity of the actual forgiveness of the sins of the individual 
before they have been committed. The Bibliotheca Sacra owes it 
to its own former reputation for scholarship, as well as in justice 
to Dorner, to retract the misapprehensions of this article, and to 
publish a worthy review of Dorner's system. — Tr.] 



THE FUTURE STATE. 1 27 

rests on preponderant exegetical grounds (but that 
gives no dogmatic proposition, because this must be 
derived also from the principle of faith), 1 nor have 

p Dorner's meaning in this condensed sentence is liable to mis- 
apprehension and abuse. The remarks already made in the Intro- 
duction concerning his view of the relation of Scripture and 
faith, may serve to indicate in general how this sentence should 
be read. I may make his idea clearer by asking what, upon Dor- 
ner's principles, is necessary to a dogma of faith ? (1) It must of 
course have foundations in the Scriptures, but more than this is 
necessary before what seem to be the contents of a Scripture can 
be made an article of faith. (2) A dogma should be consistent 
with the whole contents of Scripture as apprehended by Christian 
faith. (3) A dogma of faith will show itself to be necessary to 
faith, or in some way, immediately, or indirectly, it will verify itself 
in the experience of faith. It it cannot be thus appropriated by 
faith, it may lie as an element in the Scripture which we cannot 
as yet make our own, and put forth as a part of our faith. The 
balance of exegetical reasons may seem to favor it, but we cannot 
assert it with dogmatic confidence until we are able to assimilate 
it in the lire of faith, and to harmonize it with the general con- 
tents of Christianity. So some may hold that the preponderance 
of exegetical considerations teaches that, according to St. Peter, 
Christ preached the Gospel among the dead ; but they may 
hesitate to put the natural inference from-that Scripture forward 
as a dogmatical sentence, because they may not be able to bring 
the idea 01 a continued future probation for any man into the 
general harmony of their faith. They may prefer to leave the 
texts from Feter as they stand, regarding them as biblical elements 
to which our theology is not as yet equal. So Dorner, with his 
usual exegetical candor, admits a balance of exegetical considera- 
tions for a statement which he is not able to derive also from the 
principle of faith, and in particular to harmonize with his con- 
ception of freedom. — Tit.] 



128 THE FUTURE STATE. 

the dogmatical grounds of apokatastasis proved deci- 
sive. Hence that, too, cannot be taught dogmatically. 
The objective reason why dogmatically no positive 
categorical statement can here be made, lies in human 
freedom. This does not allow the assertion of a uni- 
versal process necessarily leading to salvation, be- 
cause such a process is and remains conditioned by 
non-rejection and free acceptance. 

But this same human freedom, so long as it lasts, 
also excludes any categorical dogmatical affirmation 
that there certainly are damned beings ; for so long 
as freedom of any kind exists, so long the possibility 
of conversion is not excluded, though it be through 
judgment and damnation to deep, long woe. And 
wherever this possibility issued in reality, there self- 
evidently damnation could not continue. The neces- 
sary eternal duration of the rejection and damnation 
of the one class could be maintained, with complete 
definiteness, only provided we also taught, as advocates 
of eternal damnation generally do teach, the total loss 
of freedom for conversion — absolute hardening; 
whereupon the new question arises whether such are 
still men, and not rather beings that were men, but 
have really fallen back to a lower plane. 1 

\} The question might fairly be raised here whether Dorner, in 
consistency with his own view of the definite decision which 
Christianity shall sooner or later bring to all, might not reach a 
more pronounced dogmatic conclusion at this point. I presume 



THE FUTURE STATE. 1 29 

6. But a third theory seems now to meet increasing 
approval, in opposition both- to the church doctrine, 
and especially to the doctrine of apokatastasis, viz. : 
the hypothesis of the annihilation of the wicked, 
which likewise thinks it can attain categorical state- 

his position would be this : So far as tlie Christian idea of God re- 
quires divine forbearance, and so far as the gracious possibilities of 
the impenitent are concerned, the last judgment is, and ethically 
should be, final ; but so long as the metaphysical nature of free- 
dom remains, so long the possibility of a different choice must be 
assumed. The metaphysical possibility of repentance and faith 
is involved in the continuance of the metaphysical freedom of the 
will. Either, then, if we would arrive here at dogmatic certainty, 
we must suppose that the loss of real, or moral, freedom through 
persistent sin finally ruins also the metaphysical freedom of the 
will, reducing what was a moral personality to the level of a 
thing; or, renouncing dogmatic certainty upon this point, we must 
admit the metaphysical possibility of repentance as involved in 
freedom, and not destroyed even under the judgment of God. 

But if this abstract, metaphysical possibility of repentance in 
eternity should ever become an actuality, then new questions 
would arise, viz., whether punishment would not then become 
chastisement, since the ethical unchangeableness of God would re- 
quire of Him changed relations to changed conditions of his creat- 
ures ; and, further, whether penitence under punishment would 
render morally possible again the human capacity for redemption. 
But these are questions beyond questions, and our speculation 
here may easily carry thought beyond all sober limits. It is 
sometimes, however, a relief to faith, to be allowed to ask ques- 
tions, and to follow them out until we realize the mystery of 
eternity in which the ends of the creation are lost from thought. 
-Til.] 

9 



13° THE FUTURE STATE. 

ments respecting the question of persons. We accord- 
ingly dwell on it awhile. 

If regard for the fact of freedom does not permit 
the affirmation of the doctrine that a harmonious con- 
clusion of history and universal restoration are se- 
cured by means of a conversion certainly universal and 
without exception, — for if the ethical process turned 
into a physical one, the result attained would be only 
apparently of ethical value, — this harmonious con- 
clusion might seem to be better secured by the view 
that, since the power of immortal life resides only in 
Christ and living communion with him, those who 
obstinately and finally withdraw from such commun- 
ion perish and are annihilated. This theory may 
take account of human freedom and the divine jus- 
tice further by leaving room for a punishment of the 
wicked, and making the very annihilation itself to be 
effected by the consuming divine penalties, which be- 
gin from the final judgment. 1 In favor of the view 
of the final annihilation of the wicked, it is alleged 3 
that numerous expressions which are used in refer- 

1 The latter is taught by the Socinians and Eothe, whereas ac- 
cording to Weisse (Stud, u. Krit., 1835: Ueber die philos. Bedeu- 
tung der chr. Eschatologie ; Philos. Dogmatik, sec. 965) annihilation 
comes of itself upon all who are not rendered immortal by regen- 
eration. White, on the other hand, makes a retributive punish- 
ment and pain fall, indeed, on the godless before their annihila- 
tion, but seems to regard this as the act of God himself. P. 499 ff. 

*Kg., by White, p. 359 ff. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 131 

ence to those falling under sentence of condemnation 
suggest annihilation. 1 The word death has, indeed, 
various meanings, but it always denotes the dissolu- 
tion of a living power. Thus physical death, so called, 
is a dissolution of the living unity, which embraces 
the body and the soul. Further, the sinful state of 
the soul is called a spiritual death, because through it 
the bond between the soul and God is dissolved. 
When, then, a " second death " is spoken of, this may 
signify merely the dissolving of the soul itself into 
nothing. 2 This view can be readily reconciled with 
Scripture passages which teach an eternal duration of 
hell punishments, if alwvios can denote an immeas- 
urable, indefinitely long duration of punishment. 
Although the notion may have less to commend it, 
that God himself directly destroys the souls of the 
ungodly, we may still remember that to the ethical 
pertains also ontological significance ; 3 whence it fol- 
lows that just as the appropriation of the Holy Spirit 
and of the divine life has importance in the elevation 
and strengthening of the entire human life, so, con- 
versely, estrangement from God severs from the 

1 E.g. , airdbxeia, 6\s9pos, Matt. vii. 13 ; Rom. ix. 22 ; 1 Thess. v. 
3 ; 2 Thess. i. 9 ; 1 Tim. vi. 9 ; airoWvvat, o7rd'\Au<r3at, Matt. x. 28 ; 
Luke xvii. 33 ; John iii. 16, xii. 25 ; 1 Cor. i. 18. 

2 Comp. Nitzsch, p. 413 ff. 

3 This sentence is characteristic of Dorner. To him the real is 
the ethical ; the ontological is conceived by him always as su- 
preme moral reality. — Tr. 



132 THE FUTURE STATE. 

source of life, and the growing dominion of sin is no- 
wise without influence on the continuance of the spirit- 
ual forces. Rather sin, too, has ontological import, 
i.e., negatively. This also seems to be held by all 
church teachers, who, in order to maintain the eter- 
nity of hell punishments, and cut off the continued 
possibility of conversion, assert as a natural conse- 
quence and punishment of sin the entire loss of free- 
dom in the case of the lost ; with which, in keeping 
with the connection of knowledge and will, is linked 
a complete darkening of the spirit, and extinction of 
every remnant of higher light and knowledge of God. 
And however it may be disputed whether so shat- 
ered a being, in whom that which makes a man man 
— reason and freedom — is extinguished, is still to be 
called a man, so much seems clear, that even the 
church teachers mentioned reach in the main point 
an annihilation of the ungodly. These are then to 
be viewed essentially as a kind of demented beings, 
perhaps raging for ever in impotent fury, which again 
would be a sort of annihilation of their human char- 
acter. 

It cannot, in fact, be denied that the two views — 
that of those church teachers who make freedom and 
reason, and especially God-consciousness to be extin- 
guished for ever in the damned, and that of the advo- 
cates of the annihilation of the ungodly — approach 
very near to each other ; only that the latter have this 



THE FUTURE STATE. 133 

iu their favor, that they at least set aside the scream- 
ing dissonance that would be left, by reason of the 
unity of the world, if alongside the world of the per- 
fected and saved that other world of insanity and blind 
enmity to God continued eternally. But it does not at 
once follow from this that we can set up the annihila- 
tion of the wicked as a dogmatic proposition, but only 
that, if we hold fast to the immortality of the wicked, 
we must not assume the effect of sin to be the entire 
extinction of freedom and reason. The doctrine of 
the annihilation of the ungodly is on its part likewise 
mere hypothesis, for to assert at present dogmatically 
that there are certainly those doomed to annihilation 
would be incompatible with freedom. But exegeti- 
cally this hypothesis has against it the fact that Holy 
Scripture represents a deliverance from imprisonment 
as possible, although through heavy punishment. 1 It 
is again opposed in that whereas Holy Scripture 
teaches differences of degree in guilt and punishment 
even after the judgment, and therefore not an infinite 
guilt in all whom the judgment condemns; this hy- 
pothesis, on the contrary, assumes one and the same 
highest degree of punishment for all sinners, namely, 
annihilation (so far, namely, as the fact is left out of 
sight, that annihilation is also an end of all punish- 

1 Matt v. 26. (Comp. xii. 31 ff . , since punishment is not for- 
giveness. ) 



134 THE FUTURE STATE. 

ment). 1 Although, further, this hypothesis seems 
exceedingly favorable to the unity and harmonious 
consummation of the world, there remains still the 
disturbing element, that such glorious spiritual capa- 
cities in the image of God, having an essential rela- 
tion to infinite excellence, and thus themselves par- 
taking, though in small degree, of the infinite, are 
supposed to perish, and be annihilated, after the man- 
ner of mere finite natural faculties. 2 Accordingly, 
this hypothesis also can lay no claim to unreserved 
acknowledgment and dogmatic authority, and we must 
be content with saying, that the ultimate fate of in- 
dividuals remains veiled in mystery, as well as the 
question whether all will attain the blessed goal or 
not. Enough that we have the certainty of eternal 
life and of the consummation of God's kingdom, 
however this may be brought about. But though we 
lack a knowledge of much that is in itself worth 
knowing in eschatology generally, and especially un- 

1 With annihilation, indeed, all punishment is at an end. But 
if the ungodly are not annihilated by God, but consumed by the 
punishments, such a view does not exhibit a just distribution of 
the degrees of punishment ; for the sin of the worst transgressors 
must do its consuming work most rapidly, and thus the punish- 
ment for them would be most quickly ended, whereas it would 
continue so much the longer, the less the power of evil in the 
sinner. 

2 Evil is never the substance of the soul ; this remains meta- 
physically good. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 135 

der tliis Lead — knowledge which we cannot have on 
account of human freedom — it remains for us to lay 
down the following dogmatic propositions : 

1. There is a judgment which maintains divine 
justice, but also, by excluding everything hostile, 
ministers to the consummation of the kingdom of 
God. 

2. There is no predestination to damnation ; only 
continued impenitence can be the cause of that ; 
hence no one is forever damned who has and can 
have the will to be converted. 

3. The process of grace can never become physical. 
Hence rejection of grace remains possible, and every 
hope of apokatastasis that passes into the physical 
sphere is to be rejected, as w r ell as the hope of uni- 
versal salvation apart from Christ. 

4. Some may be eternally damned, so far as the 
abuse of freedom continues eternally ; but without 
the possibility of the restoration of freedom, man has 
passed into another class of beings, and regarded from 
the standpoint of the idea of man, is a mere ruin. 

5. Blessedness can exist only where holiness is. 
As there is no penitence damned, 1 so there is no un- 
holy blessedness. 



1 Mtzsch : The thought of an eternal damnation and punish- 
ment is necessary, in so far as there can be no enforced holiness of 
a personal being to eternity, and no saved unholiness to eternity. 
System, ed. 6, sec. 219, p. 411. 



136 THE FUTURE STATE. 

THE CONSUMMATION OF THE WORLD AND ETERNAL BLESS- 
EDNESS. 

Sec. 155. 

There is an eternal blessedness through the trans- 
figuring consummation of nature, of individuals, and 
of the kingdom of God. 

1. The New Testament proclaims, as did the Old, 1 
a consummation (avvrekeca, 2 airoKardaracn^y when 
Christ shall have accomplished his mediatorial work 
and led all God's children to the Father, that God 
may be all in all, i.e., that his glory may be revealed, 
and the dominion of his will be universal, — not 
merely the will of his love, but also of his power 
and justice. In detail we have to consider the Con- 
summation of Nature, of Individuals, and of the 
Kingdom of God. 

2. The Consummation of the natural world pre- 
supposes an end 4 of the present world-period and 
system; which, however, must not be conceived as 
an annihilation of the world, although it is described 
as a combustion of the world. 5 Matter is not evil ; 
the destruction thus can only refer to the form of the 

1 Is. lxvi. 

2 Matt. xiii. 39, 40, 49 ; xxiv. 3 ; xxviii. 20. 

3 Acts iii. 21. 1 Cor. xv. 24-28. Eev. xxi. 1. 
4 1 John ii. 17. 5 2 Pet. iii. 7-10. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 137 

world. 1 The conflagration may precede as a means 
of transfiguring the world into heightened beauty, 
into a new heaven and new earth. 2 The substance 
of the world may be ennobled thereby. This trans- 
figuring of nature includes not merely the erasing of 
all traces of sin in the form and substance of the 
world, but also so intimate a union of nature with 
spirit, that there will no longer be any place for de- 
cay. 3 Without loss of substantiality, matter will have 
exchanged its darkness, hardness, heaviness, inertia, 
and impenetrableness, for clearness, radiance, elas- 
ticity, and transparency. 4 Although with the con- 
summation of the earthly creation its task will be 
discharged, yet from this consummated circle of crea- 
tion as a basis, an altogether new stadium may again 
begin, an advance to new creations with the co-opera- 
tion of perfected mankind, in which God will have 
his being, and through which He will continue his 
work. 

3. As concerns the Consummation of Individuals, 

1 1 Cor. vii. 31. See above, p. 61. 

2 Rev. xxi. 1. Ps. cii. 26. Isa. lxvi. 

3 According to Rothe's Theol. Ethik, liability to decay is possible 
only through the dissolution of the ideal and real through the ex- 
piring of the former. 

4 Rothe, Ethik, ed. 2, ii, 481 ff. Schoberlein, Jahrb. f. d. 
Theol., 1861, vi., 1; TJeber das Wesen der geistigen Natur und 
Leiblichkeit. Hamberger, Die himmlische Leiblichkeit, ibid., 
1862, 1. Lange, ut supra. 



138 THE FUTURE STATE. 

the promise is that the righteous shall shine as the 
sun in the kingdom of the Father. 1 As our earthly 
body bore the image of the earthly Adam, so our 
pneumatic, spiritual body shall bear Christ's image. 2 
We shall stand in a state of unfettered life. The 
somatico-psychical organism will be the absolutely 
adequate means for the activity of the spirit, all mor- 
tality and passivity of the bod} 7 will have vanished. 
Space and time, if also life shall still run in these 
forms, will no longer be restraining limits. The per- 
fected, through the eternal life in them, have, like 
God, a fount of life within themselves. 3 " Connec- 
tion w T ith all world-spheres, and especially the per- 
sons in them, hence also communion with these, is 
open to the perfected. A light will stream from out 
the inmost being of the perfected, forming an at- 
mosphere about them and binding them together." 
When we are entirely sanctified in body, soul, and 
spirit, even the earthly distinctions of sex will no 
longer exist, nor the earthly distinction of ages, each 
of which has its imperfection ; rather the power of 
eternal life includes both perpetual youth and the ripe- 
ness of maturity. The new spiritual body also is raised 
into the fulness of spiritual energy. It will share in 
the freedom from space, and be able to follow the 

1 Matt. xiii. 43. 

2 1 Cor. xv. 49. Comp. 1 John iii. 2. Phil. iii. 81. 2 Cor. 
iii. 18. s John iv. 14. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 139 

swiftness of thought. And since it will no longer 
form an independent life-centre apart from the spirit 
and the sphere of its energy, but the perfected spirit 
will rather have become the only and all-controlling 
centre of the person, as a result, the spirit's liability 
to be tempted through the body will disappear with 
the mortality and passiveness of the latter. The 
spiritual side, on its part, will be remote from the 
possibility of sin, not through loss of freedom, but 
through the indestructible love-energy springing from 
union with God, from the presence of God and 
Christ, and from the constant joy in and with them. 
Likewise the perfected spirit will, like God and Christ, 
possess true freedom in that it can no more become 
unf ree. On the side of knowledge and will, the soul 
will enjoy blessed contentment. Then Christ will 
keep the Supper anew with us, and the hours of high- 
est solemnity in this life are but a weak foretaste of 
the powers of the world to come. 1 Then fragmentary 
knowledge will cease, for we shall see face to face. 2 

To those who love Him, God will give what no eye 
hath seen or ear heard, nor heart conceived. 3 The 
pure in heart shall see God, 4 i.e., not only possess him 
by faith, or have knowledge through inferences from 
his works, but they shall know Him as He is. They 

1 Heb. vi. 4, 5. 

2 1 Cor. xiii. 10-12. 1 John iii. 2. John xvii. 24. Rev. xxii. 4. 

3 1 Cor. ii. 9. 4 Matt v. 8. 



140 THE FUTURE STATE. 

will have power to love Him perfectly, for his love- 
liness and beauty, as Baxter says, shall be rightly 
known only when " the heavenly faculty of perception 
is winged, sharpened, the highest clearness of vision." 
(Lange). Since the spiritual body has then become 
a perfect organ even of knowledge, so will God in 
his cosmical being, and the world as it is filled with 
God, be beheld by the blessed, and apprehended in 
their immediate presentness. The individual will 
be known in the light of great visions of the whole, 
and in the reciprocal connection between him and 
the whole. So far as the universe is eternally 
progressing, and new cycles of creation are ever 
coming into being, knowledge is never final, and 
yet never fragmentary ; but it can survey the whole 
as it exists from time to time, and the new treasures 
of divine wisdom and love poured into it. But this 
whole is itself like a circle ever widening, yet al- 
ways a whole, a harmonious organism. The beati- 
fied mutually understand each other also. There 
will not only be a reunion and mutual recogni- 
tion, 1 but we shall also behold (in which even a So- 
crates rejoiced) all the great minds in the history of 
humanity, a Paul, John, the Prophets, and have the 
noblest enjoyment in infinitely manifold communion 
and love. But the centre of the blessed enjoyment 

1 Matt. viii. 11 ; xvii. 3. Luke xiii. 28. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 141 

will be God himself and Christ. The highest activity 
of the will is to be in perfected worship/ consisting 
in adoration, thanks, and praise, and also in joyous 
obedience, making itself in godlike love an organ for 
God's continuous work. This leads to the relation of 
blessedness to rest and enjoyment on the one hand, on 
the other to action. The poetic figures which de- 
pict the enjoyment of the heavenly harmony are 
especially borrowed from the domain of art. Art, 
the Beautiful, receives here at last its special place, 
for it is the way of art to delight in visible presenta- 
tion (Darstellung), to achieve the classical and per- 
fect with unfettered play of its powers. 2 Every one, 
morally perfect, will thus wed the good to the beauti- 
ful. It follows then from this, that in the rest, which 
is conceived of as the goal, as an eternal Sabbath, 3 
there will be no inactivity ; and also no unrest in the 
activity. Labor and effort have fallen away, because 
the organ serves the spirit with perfect willingness ; 
but godlike work continues. 4 Nothing remains indeed 
to be done with reference to personal sin, but for this 
reason outward activity still continues; nay, even 
production and the contemplating of what is pro- 
duced, both with undisturbed sense of blessedness. 
The talents of individuals will not be lost, nay, will 

1 Rev. vii. 12 ; xxii. 3. 2 Rev. v. 8-14 ; xxi. 

3 Heb. iv. 11. Rev. vii. 16, 17 ; xxi. 4. 

4 Schleiermacher, Christ. Glaube, ii., 500. 



142 THE FUTURE STATE. 

be raised to higher potency, and spring without hin- 
drance from out the fount of eternal life. 1 The fact 
of activity in blessedness is emphasized in the figure 
of the faithful being set over many things, the com- 
mission to rule cities, and the sitting and judging, i.e., 
ruling the tribes of Israel. 2 Further, the creations of 
God will still advance, and since, according to the 
analogy of the relation of angels to the growth of 
God's kingdom upon earth, the law prevails that the 
perfected at the time forms the fixed starting-point 
for further productions, the blessed will never be in 
want of an arena of satisfying activity. Since nature 
has acquired perfect plasticity for the spirit, it will be 
no longer a mere place or abode of the spirit, but its 
property, nay, enabled to become the pure mirror of 
the spirit, and the willing adequate organ for its 
creations and outward manifestations. If inquiry is 
made as to the contents of this working and represent- 
ation, they are the exhaustless contents of eternal 
life streaming into every individual life, the Triune 
God himself. The Deity, infinitely rich and glorious, 
is apprehended and reflected back by each individuality 
in its own way — a thought expressed in the gleam- 
ing jewels of many colors in the city of God. 3 Every 
individuality, therefore, reflects the divine in a way 

1 Luke xix. 13. 

2 Luke xix. 13-17. Matt. xxv. 15 ff.; xix. 28. 

3 Rev. xxi. 11-23. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 143 

no other can do, but is also receptive to each of the 
rest, and their reflecting. Thus, each in loving con- 
templation moulds, into its own being the others and 
their reflectings in the past and present, and the say- 
ing becomes truth, " All is yours." 

There is place for difference of degree in reference 
to blessedness and glory, but without envy and disor- 
der; for every one has the measure which he is able 
to receive, and every one in his own way, through the 
absolute communion of love which binds together the 
perfected, shares in that which is another's. This en- 
hances the sense of life and the power of individuality. 
But all, the entire, organized circle of countless blessed 
spirits grow, without any defect in blessedness per- 
taining to their growth, for the source of their life is 
the unsullied, faultless blessedness, nay, the eternal 
life which God himself is — God the Triune — Father, 
Son, and Holy Spirit. 

4. But the city of God in the glorified, transfigured 
universe, the temple wdiich is the medium of God's 
presence to ail, is the Church of God. If the uni- 
verse has become the holy place, it does not lack its 
Holy of Holies. The idea of the Church is certainly 
narrower than that of the kingdom of God ; its con- 
summation alone would not be the consummation of 
the latter. But the Church is not merely humanity 
united with God ; it embraces also the higher spirit- 
world which has the same Head — Christ. Again, the 



144 THE FUTURE STATE. 

Church is the animating, hallowing, glorifying centre 
of all moral communions, which embrace also nature 
in its kind, and which on earth found but imperfect, 
typical manifestations of their reality or idea. The 
valuable, true elements of all communions are not 
only preserved, but brought to consummation in har- 
monious iuterpenetratiou, without losing their distinc- 
tions. Thus is the manifold wisdom of God, 1 the 
wealth of God's creative thoughts, revealed through 
the Church of God and to it, for the Church is to all 
the innermost power of consummation, because in it 
is the throne of the eternal Life. The deepest ground 
thereof lies in the incarnation or Godmanhood of 
Christ, which took place primarily for the Church ; 
for in his incarnation not only are God and man 
united, but in his resurrection the beginning of the 
consummation of nature is typified. The power of 
his resurrection continues in the consummated new 
creation of his Church, and effects also the transfig- 
uring of the world. 2 As in this consummation all 
false blending of evil and good, of mortal and eternal, 
must come to a separation, so also the separateness of 
spirit and nature, which is the cause of mortality and 
temptation, of vacillation and inconstancy, must yield 
to the power which proceeds from the risen Christ, in 
whom spirit and nature are absolutely blended. This 

1 Eph. iii. 10. 2 Phil. iii. 10. 



THE FUTURE STATE. 145 

is the representation of Paul. 1 As a unit the Church 
is called the Bride of Christ, 2 but it is a unity in va- 
riety and multitude ; it is the City of God, the new 
Jerusalem. 3 God himself is its light and sun and 
everlasting day ; but the divine light is also reflected 
in manifold ways from the well-ordered, firm, and 
glorious structure of the City. The beatified throng 
of the righteous, praising God and perfected, are in- 
dissolubly united through the Holy Spirit with the 
bridegroom, 4 as also with one another through love 
and mutual helpfulness. After the conflicts and 
tribulations, especially those of the last age before 
Christ's second advent, will come the marriage-feast 
of the Lamb, and the bridegroom will bring home 
the bride to the new Supper, 5 to the blessed and in- 
dissoluble union of the members with their Head 
by which the dearest and holiest relations of earthly 
communion all attain to their truth. 

1 Rom. viii. 11-19. Col. i. 18 ft. Eph. i. 10. 

2 Rev. xxii. 17. Comp. Matt. ix. 15 ; xxv. 1. Luke v. 34. Mark 
ii. 19. Eph. v. 24-32. 

3 Heb. xii. 22. Rev. iii. 12 ; xxi. 2, 10. 

4 Rev. xxii. 17. Eph. iv. 13, 16. 

5 Rev. xix. 7, 9. Matt. xxii. 2 ff. 



10 



APPENDIX. 



THE EXALTATION OR POST-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST. 
FIRST DOCTRINAL PART. 

The Descent into Hades (Comp. Sec. 99). 
Sec. 124. 

The so-called descent of Christ into Hades belongs 
neither to the state of humiliation or suffering, nor 
does it have a mere epideictic meaning ; but it desig- 
nates rather, for Christ's person, a higher state of life, 
of a pneumatic character, in which he can manifest 
his spiritual power independently of time and space. 

It is to be accepted as a result of the more recent 
exegetical research 1 that, as was also the belief of the 

1 Weiss, Petrinisclier Lehrbegriff, 1855. Guder, p. 88 ff. Frank, 
p. 205 ff., over 1 Pet. iii. 18 ; iv. 6. Acts ii. 24-27. Eph. iv. 
8-10 does not belong here. [Huther, in Meyer's Commentary, in 
his note upon this passage, shows the grammatical untenable- 
ness of turning around the meaning of Christ's preaching into 
a preaching of Noah, in the spirit of Christ ; an interpretation 
which, he says, is all the more capricious as Noah, notwith- 
standing 2 Pet. ii. 5, is not here spoken of at all as a preacher ; 



148 APPENDIX. 

ancient church, Peter really thinks of Christ as active 
after his death, probably before his resurrection, in 

and moreover, it confuses the two distinct biblical expressions, 
Christ's spirit as the essential nature of Christ, and the Spirit of 
Christ as the third person of the Trinity. From 1 Pet. iv. 6, he 
concludes "that it is said that to all who are dead (i.e., at the time 
of the judgment) — entirely independent of when or how — the 
Gospel shall have been preached, be it before or after their death. " 
Alford's note in loco agrees with the great consensus of interpre- 
ters in holding that the words mean an actual going of Christ into 
Hades and the preaching of his Gospel to the class mentioned in 
the text. The reason for mentioning that particular class he 
finds in the suggestion of the context ; Huther (in Meyer), p. 
198, finds the reason for it in the fact that Christ extended his 
saving activity to those who were already condemned in the first 
judgment which overtook all men, which is a type of the last 
judgment. Alford's words are in point here : " It is ours to deal 
with the plain words of Scripture, and to accept its revelations as 
far as vouchsafed to us. And they are vouchsafed to us to the 
utmost limit of legitimate inference from revealed facts. That in- 
ference every intelligent reader will draw from the fact here an- 
nounced ; it is not purgatory, it is not universal restitution ; but it 
is one which throws blessed light upon one of the darkest enigmas 
of the divine justice ; the cases where the final doom seems infin- 
itely out of proportion to the lapse which has incurred it. And 
as we cannot say to what other cases this preaching may have ap- 
plied, so it would be presumption in us to limit its occurrence or 
its efficacy. The reason of mentioning here these sinners above 
other sinners appears to be their connection with the type of 
baptism which follows. If so, who shall say that the blessed act 
was confined to them ?" The attempt to evade the natural mean- 
ing of these passages in First Peter by remote inference from 
2 Peter ii. 5, 9, hardly needs serious refutation. — Tr.] 



APPENDIX. 149 

the kingdom of the dead (in Hades, old German Hel), 
and therefore not in the place of torment, but in the 
intermediate region. 1 If hell is the same as the re- 
gion of the dead, the notion is precluded of Christ 
going into Hades in order to endure the torments of 
hell. 2 The reference, found among reformed theolo- 
gians, of the descent into Hades to the torments of 
hell, which had to be endured, shows its intrinsic 
weakness in this, that nevertheless these inner suffer- 
ings were then usually connected with the cross. 3 
Since the text speaks of a preaching to the spirits 
reserved in Hades, the interpretation, here and there 
endorsed by Luther, that Christ presented himself as 
a victorious Lord to the devil and the damned in hell, 
thus making a mere epideictic triumphal progress 
there, is out of the question. Before Christ there 
was no abode peopled by the damned ; the Old Tes- 
tament Sheol is something different. A preferable 
meaning would be that Christ vanquished the devil 

1 Only v. Hoffman, v. Zezschwitz, and Luthardt try to avoid this 
natural interpretation, understanding by the preaching, 1 Pet. iii. 
19, a preaching on earth to the spiritually dead, and that in the 
days of Noah (as formerly Aepin). 

2 Aepin supposed the descent into Hades to be a part of the re- 
demptive suffering for humanity, but without including the tor- 
ments of the damned ; for Hades is simply the intermediate 
region, not Gehenna. 

3 The Form. Cone. , 785, declares against identifying the descent 
into Hades with the burial. 



150 APPENDIX. 

and hell. But since tins conquest takes place, not 
through physical power and force, but through his 
entire redeeming work, it could only be ascribed to 
the descent into hell at the cost of the redemptiou ac- 
complished by Christ. It is hence to be regarded as 
the application of the benefit of his atonement, as. 
seems to be intimated by the KripvTTeiv among the de- 
parted. But this relegates us to the prophetic office. 
The descent into Hades is therefore not to be re- 
garded as primarily an act of the high-priestly or 
kingly office. The preaching of the grace of God in 
Christ, his presentation of himself " as the efficient 
principle of salvation, able to atone and actually 
atoning," pertains primarily to the prophetic office ; 
but this, again, reveals his person in a new form. 1 

2. The descent into Hades cannot be derived 
simply from Christ's having the same nature with us, 



1 Frank (Theol. d. Cone. For., p. 429) explains that the F. C. 
does not definitely assign the descent into Hades to the state of ex- 
altation ; for it speaks indeed of the vanquishing of hell and the 
devil, but this could also be on the supposition of the descent into 
Hades involving suffering, as indeed was held by M. Flacius and 
Joach. Westphalius, as well as by Aepin. Frank himself (Syst. 
d. chr. Wahr., p. 205 ff.) rightly excludes all suffering in reference 
to Christ after his death (in keeping with Luke xxiii. 43), but calls 
it "foolish," as nevertheless the ancient church held, to suppose 
that the preaching of Christ (the Kt\pvmiv) in the under-world in- 
cluded the intention of redeeming those 7n/eu/*aTa, and the 
eventual realization of that intention, p. 207. 



APPENDIX. 151 

as if it were a personal necessity for him, because all 
men pass into Hades after the separation of the soul 
from the body. Acts ii. 24 does not affirm this, but 
rather that his person could not be held by Hades. 
It can only be conceded that Christ was unable to 
avoid Hades, if by Hades is understood the state of 
separation between body and soul, instead of a place 
in which departed spirits are gathered, because that 
state of separation was involved in Christ's death ; 
but the doctrine of Christ's descent into Hades would 
then be no new doctrinal point, but only a proof that 
his death actually took place. On the other hand, 
Christ's going to the spirits in prison is spoken of as 
a spontaneous act, not as an act of physical necessity. 
~No weakness in his person, no power of Hades over 
him, led him into Hades. In death his person is 
inwardly perfected (sec. 123). Not a shadowy life does 
he live in Hades ; but, according to Peter, he inter- 
venes mightily by his word, and carries on his work ; 
as, therefore, his very deliverance from the limits of 
the mortal body is already an indication of a higher 
stage of existence. 1 

3. Dogmatic sobriety enjoins reserve upon this 
point. Christ's death was no illusive death. The 
separation of the soul and the body, affirmed in this 
article, implies a confirmation not only of the reality 

1 1 Pet. iii. 18. 



152 APPENDIX. 

of his death, but also of the reality of his human soul, 
with which the TJnio of the Logos continued. We 
must, therefore, think of his soul as bodiless for 
a time — at least as without the material, earthly 
body. He was then Pneuma only. And this is 
the dogmatic substratum for the position that 
Christ could appear and work in the region of 
those who as departed spirits lead a similar bodiless 
existence. 

We have here, then, a requirement — unless Christ 
is to be conceived as in a condition of spiritual 
slumber, or inaction in this bodiless state — to imagine 
him as at work during this time in a way appro- 
priate to this stadium. Yet no more detailed con- 
struction of the necessity and mode of this activity 
on behalf of the departed is to be attempted ; but 
the New Testament passages must be left in their 
simple form. Nevertheless, the following elements 
contained in the descent into Hades are important. 
There was truth in the notion of the Hebrews re- 
specting Sheol ; yet the world of the intermediate 
state — not merely the notion of it — has a history. 
Even the pious in the Old Testament tremble at the 
kingdom of the dead, just as in the Middle Ages, 
also, humanity fell back into a pre-Christian dread 
of death. For purgatory, again, is a Hades which 
even Christians did not overcome, more terrible than 
Sheol ; and its gloomy effects overspread, like a dark 



APPENDIX. 153 

shadow, the whole of this present life. !S r ow, through 
Christ, the intermediate state of the departed has 
experienced a movement, nay, a transformation, 
through the manifestation of his person and work. 
The ceasing of this preaching, (fctfpvy/jLa), which 
Christ began with his preaching at that time, is 
neither recorded nor reasonably to be supposed ; as 
indeed the ancient church supposed that the preach- 
ing on behalf of the departed was continued by the 
apostles. The apostles knew that with the comple- 
tion of the atonement deliverance is given from 
the terrors of Hades, and the fear of death ; 1 and 
the same consciousness found expression again, in the 
strongest way, at the reformation. ~No power, not 
even death and Hades, can separate us from fellow- 
ship with Christ. But this further implies that 
Christ's appearance among the dwellers in the region 
of the dead was the work of his free spirit-power — 
no passive subjection to a mere physical necessity, 
and this leads to the further consequence, that the 
descent into Hades expresses the universality of 
Christ's significance, also for former generations and 
for the entire kingdom of the dead. The distinction 
between earlier and later generations, between the 
time of ignorance and the time of knowledge of him- 

1 Heb. ii. 14. 1 Cor. xv. 55. Rom. viii. 38, 39. Phil. i. 20- 



154 APPENDIX. 

self, is done away by Christ. 1 No physical power is a 
limit to him. The future world, like the present, is 
the scene of his activity. Combining these farthest 
extremes in his person, he constitutes himself the 
centre transcending all physical limits, " in presence 
of which all distinctions of time and space vanish, 
one distinction alone having significance — that be- 
tween faith and unbelief." 2 

Observation 1. — Christ's saying, " This day shalt 
thou be with me in paradise" (Luke xxiii. 43), 
agrees with the descent into Hades so far as by 
paradise the assured state of blessedness is meant ; 
for even in his work in Hades, Christ is in blessed- 
ness, and blessedness is in communion with him. 

Observation 2. — The period of Rationalism, how- 
ever great the interest it showed for the salvation 
of the heathen, illogically took special offence at 
the present point of doctrine. Strauss, on the con- 
trary, thinks ("Dogm.," i., 264, 271; ii., 148) that the 

1 Comp. Martensen, ut supra. But this is first accomplished by 
a historic influence proceeding from Christ, which sets aside the 
common opinion that, e.g., the pious in the Old Testament, be- 
fore Christ, possessed essentially the same faith in all respects, 
and the same blessing by retrospective action, as Christians. 
Such retrospective force is rendered superfluous and more than 
doubtful by the preaching of the Gospel in Hades. According 
to the Shepherd of Hermas (iii. 9, 16), it was necessary even for 
the patriarchs, and, according to Clement v. Alex. (Stromata, ii., 
9, vi.), referred even to heathen philosophers. Comp. Guder, p. 
127 ff. 

2 Comp. Martensen. 



APPENDIX. 155 

fact of vast masses of men, before and after Christ, 
dying without being brought into relation to Christ, 
proves that the Christian revelation is not neces- 
sary to salvation, because not universal. Modern 
theology has eagerly welcomed this article, and that 
because it removes both the difficulties mentioned ; 
for it witnesses that even those who were not laid 
hold of by Christ's historic manifestation in their 
earthly life, still must and may be brought into re- 
lation to him, in order to be able to accept or to 
reject him. And thus the universal relation of 
Christianity to humanity, and the absoluteness of 
the Christian religion are confirmed. 



THE RELIGIOUS FEELING. 

By Rev. NEWMAN SMYTH. 

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This work aims to meet a growing need by gathering materials of 
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CRITICAL NOTICES. 



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